


These Dreams that Bind Us

by Riastarstruck



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gay Sex, Heterosexual Sex, M/M, Male Slash, Rough Sex, Spoilers, Spoilers for Season 2, Threesome - F/M/M, Upir violence, mild blood play, werewolf violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:45:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 53,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10034087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riastarstruck/pseuds/Riastarstruck
Summary: Peter had spent the year since he left driving all over the country with Lynda, running from his senior year and the dreams which plagued him almost nightly. But something was pulling Peter back, dragging him back to the blood-soaked woods and the strange boy who he’d left there.A re-imagining of Season 2 where Roman and Peter fall in love properly, like they were meant to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is me re-writing season 2 in a purely gay way. so obviously that means spoilers for all of season 2. I just had to rewrite it to fulfil my dreams of what the boys could have been.
> 
> The sex with OFC's is as gay as possible (lol) the main objective for this fic is Roman/Peter and everything that happens leads towards that.

Some nights, Peter dreams. Not the labyrinthine journey through heavy-handed symbolism and cryptic-crossword dreams, that slipped under his lids even when he was awake and buzzed through his head like wasps, half-formed clues he knew were split between his mind and another. No, these dreams were different.

The same thread laced through them, shining bright like golden twine but as strong as steel. It was wrapped so tightly around their hearts they would never untangle it, it was threaded through their souls now, and it shone bright and brilliant in these strange, other dreams that weighed his limbs and washed the danger from his heart.

There was nothing truly remarkable about the dreams, he was laying on his bed. Sometimes there was golden sunlight coming in through the windows, catching on the whirls of smoke which floated above the bed, other times it was cool night and the air was so still it was like time had stopped. He could feel Roman on the bed beside him, their bodies touching from shoulder to little finger one long line of contact as they breathed in tandem. Two bodies sharing one breath. Peter could taste salt on his lips and cardamom under his tongue.

The stillness of the dreams was made more striking for the chaos of the dreams they usually shared, like a seizure, kaleidoscopic with surround sound, HD and fire under their skin. Punching the air from their lungs and ripping their souls out of their bodies and cramming them back in again when it was done fucking with them.

The stillness was warm and soft, like sinking into a bath, the world outside going muted and unimportant. For those moment’s there was nothing outside the space their bodies inhabited. It was restful, calm. The fire in his gypsy blood, the burn which made his people keep moving, keep running towards a horizon they’ll never catch, was soothed in his veins and for the first time, he wanted to exist in a moment forever.

Waking is always slow, he slips without his knowledge into wakefulness to stare at the peeling paint and beaded curtains of his current room. He’s rested, body sated and heavy with relief he doesn’t fully understand and which seems out of place on the fold out couch which smelled like smoke and ass under his head.

He wonders if Roman is really there in his dreams. If, across the country in his big grand house, the other man is waking as though from a daze and aching for something he doesn’t entirely understand.

Lynda looks at him sometimes when he pulls himself together and staggers into the kitchen of wherever they’re staying now, her warm eyes studying him and the air around him, a frown creasing her brow as though there’s something she can’t quite make out hovering above his head. But Lynda never had the sight like Destiny.

It’s forgotten when her eyes slide off him and Peter stares down at the rings on his fingers and releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

The sunshine is warm as he lounged back against the porch steps of Lynda’s cousin's place, somewhere between Ohio and Nowheresville. The plate in his hand is chipped, a crack cutting through the faded red flowers which circle the edge. The gravy of the stew is thin, smearing across the chipped enamel and in the back of his mind, Peter thinks about blood.

He stabs at a hunk of meat and shoves it in his mouth, chewing without tasting as his eyes drift to Rowland who was laughing as he tried to catch his daughter Sky, six years old running barefoot across the patchy lawn of their cabin. She let out a laugh, her dark hair flicking behind her as she dodged and weaved, the bangles on her wrists chiming in the quiet afternoon. Somewhere in the distance, a dog is barking and a man’s voice shouts back, warring with the animal.

“You sleep too much.” A voice, heavy with the accent of the old country says as boots scuff on the dry wood of the porch. Peter wishes he had a cigarette and he stabs again at the stew on his plate, shooting a glance towards the old woman next to him who’s watching the father and daughter playing.

“I’m a growing boy.” Peter grumbled, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He gets a smack to the back of his head anyway and he set his jaw against lashing out at her. His wolf grumbled and flicked its ears.

Lynda had warned him not to make waves. Their welcome was tentative enough and only there at all because Nikolai was dead. The months since they’d left Hemlock Grove had seen them drift from clan to clan, sleeping on the couches of relatives and kin with no purpose in mind, just the gypsy fire in their blood telling them to run. Never lingering long in one place but never going too long alone. Lynda needed family, community. Gypsies were never meant to live alone, despite how sometimes their lives demanded it of them.

Peter didn’t want to be the reason Lynda lost it all, again.

“Bântuit.” the old woman muttered and Peter cast another glance at her and set his jaw. His Romanian was good enough for that. _Haunted_. The Romani didn’t look kindly on things like that, superstition and pride not allowing it. The dead are laid to rest, with their heads beside their bodies and their worldly possessions burned to ash. They are mourned and celebrated, always with them but never allowed to linger, to ruin those left behind.

Peter’s eyes slipped to Sky as she threw her head back and laughed as Rowland caught her, throwing her up into the air, catching her as they spin as one. Peter wondered what Letha’s daughter would have looked like at that age. If she would have been bold and bright like her mother, or quiet like her uncle Roman, needing to tease a smile out of him and each one like a reward.

He shut that thought off, locked the door to that part of his life tightly shut. The old woman made a noise of disgust in her throat before turning on her heel and stalking away. Peter turned his head to watch her go, a vague sense of satisfaction blooming in his chest but quickly spluttering out when he saw Lynda rounding the far side of the house, her soft eyes trained on the old woman’s retreating figure. She cut Peter a look, not exactly scolding but enough to show she was disappointed in him before turning and disappearing back around the house. 

Throwing the plate down on the step beside him, Peter closed his eyes and clenched his teeth against a curse that wanted to escape.

That afternoon they rode in two cars to the camp of the neighbouring family. They heard it before they even arrived, music and noise, voices and laughter. There were a couple of bonfires dotted around the property which was penned in by cars. Pulling up, they added their cars to the makeshift barricade against the world.

No matter where a gypsy found themselves, they always had a place in an event like this. They slipped between the crowd which was spilling out of the house and into the yard, moving through the rooms, occasionally returning a greeting as they made their way to where the elder of the clan was holding court. Peter's eyes wandered around the room as they waiting patiently for their turn to pay their greetings. He was a craggy old guy with wiry grey hair and a wine-dark shirt, he greeted them warmly, taking Lynda by the arms and kissing her on the cheeks as he greeted her. He cut a look at Peter, assessing but welcoming enough.

“Devlesa avilin,” he said and he took Peter’s hand.

“Devlesa araklam tume” Peter returned the greeting, holding still for the assessing look that was ran over him.

The elder turned to Lynda. “Your cousins are treating you well? Welcomed you home?” he didn’t wait for a reply, turning to Peter instead. “I have a job I’d like your help with. It’s not good for a man to go idle when there's work that could be done. You’re a strong boy, got the look about you,” he didn’t elaborate, only slipped his arm over Peter's shoulders and twisted them together to face the crowded main room. “You can help Rowland. He says he’s fine with the brothers but even the best men need a parachute.” he let out a laugh and squeezed Peter's shoulder. “You're a good man, you can’t be anything else with your mother.” he turned back to Lynda, releasing Peter with another laugh before slipping past them both for some newcomers to the house.

Lynda smiled, squeezing his arm and shooting him a wink before also slipping away.

Watching his mom get pulled into a conversation with a young woman Peter though might be his cousin, he let out a sigh and made his way into the party to find a beer.

Rowland found him a while later, his bottle of beer dangling from his fingers as he leant against the railing of the porch beside where Peter had settled in to watch some of the women and younger girls dancing to the fiddle music a couple of cousins had started playing. The girls laughed as they weaved between each other, their shirt-tails, dresses and hair flying up behind them as they moved on clever feet to the music.

The job was an easy one, a grift that was almost entirely without trickery. He’d just be muscle alongside the brothers, the clan and the multitude of relatives represented in them. A symbol of the strength of their people. They weren’t expecting trouble, wasn’t big enough to cause problems for anyone and they’d dealt with these boys before.

Peter had done similar jobs for his relatives since he hit maturity. It was something he could contribute to the clan even from his position as an outsider. He wasn’t good marrying stock so he made himself useful in other ways.

“A party is no place to talk business, you need to relax cuz.” Rowland tipped his bottle of beer at him and wandered off towards a couple of men playing poker in the twilight.

Peter drifted through the party, slipping in and out of conversations as he helped himself to the food and drink.

On a couch, on the back porch, he nursed a beer and watched some of the festivities. He watched as the sun descended and studied how, lit by the fire from the bonfires, the Romani that moved through the darkness seem strange and other-worldly, highlighted by the dancing flames as the shadows darkened. The firelight made the girls prettier and the boys look older and more mysterious, catching on the jewellery they all wore and getting lost in the dark shadows of their hair and clothes.

The couch let out a groan when another body sunk down on the other end and Peter tore his eyes away from the spectacle.

“Do you remember me?” the speaker was a girl, a little younger than Peter with dark brown eyes and olive skin, the bangles on her wrist jingled when she lifted her hair from her neck to try and catch a breeze. Peter shook his head mutely. “you and your mom stayed with my family a few years ago, out in Arizona.”

Peter and his mom had been in Arizona about three years ago, they’d been passing through, from New Mexico, where Lynda had gotten in a scrap with a circus, to family in Kansas.

He looked at the girl beside him, eyes lingering on the long line of her throat and the swell of her breasts, up to her face where he tried to find the sullen girl he remembered from that trip. Selina smiled, confident and knowing, so different to the girl he remembered.

They caught up. Peter let her talk, filling the quiet with stories of her travels, of her own wandering which had brought her here. It was easy, familiar conversation and he could have been having it with a hundred other Romani girls he’d met over the years.

When the sun had sunk well below the horizon the remaining party spilled out of the house and onto the property, drinking and dancing. Laughter and music filling the air. It was a celebration of the clan leader’s youngest daughter and her upcoming engagement. Peter had seen her earlier in the day, surrounded by the women of the clan, a pretty young thing with wide, dark eyes and a bored twist to her lips.

Peter and Selina were joined by others and Peter felt loose-limbed and comfortable, nursing another beer as he listened to them talk.

At some point, Selina passed him a joint and he nodded his thanks as he lifted it to his lips, taking a long inhale and letting the sweet smoke settle heavy and sticky in his lungs. It wasn't as good as the stuff Roman had shared with him. Passed between them on lawn chairs outside Nikolai’s trailer and rocking gently on the old hammock, light drifting between the leaves in the canopy above, casting speckled light down on them as they rocked slowly back and forth, the pot making everything hazy and soft.

Everything Roman used was top grade, from the weed to the tranqs, to his goddamn sports car. Peter hadn't realised he’d gotten snobby about that shit.

He passed it along and let out a ribbon of smoke into the twilight as he rested his head back and let it slip through his system.

_ Sheee-it _ Roman-in-his-head muttered, face contorting at the blunt as though it had offended him.

Peter huffed a laugh, shaking his head to dispel the vision. Peter eyed the boy on his left who was sucking in the smoke with pursed lips and an awkward twist of his wrist as he held the joint up to his mouth. He held the smoke well enough, clearly not a novice. As Peter’s head went hazy and he accepted the joint again, closing his eyes as he sucked in another lung full, he couldn't help but imagine the upir as they'd shared a smoke in front of the trailer in the woods. Roman’s big, elegant hand cradling the joint gently, almost tenderly but with the same indifference he handled most things. Roman could make smoking a joint look like an art form. Peter remembered watching through lowered lashes as the world went honey golden and slow as Roman had lifted the joint to his lips and Peter had thought, clear and bold amidst the smoke _Cocksucker lips_. He'd huffed a breath that might have been a laugh and Roman had looked at him through the smoke he let escape his parted lips in whirls and swirls, which danced before his pale eyes. For a second, Peter had thought Roman knew what he’d been thinking, that he could trace where those thoughts came from and went and _liked_ it.

Selina grumbled when he got up, plucking his bottle from where he’d put it by his foot and waved a hand in thanks and goodbye as he wandered away from the sweet-smelling smoke and deeper into the festivities. After a moment, the old couch groaned as Selina stood and followed him into the dark.

Peter slowed his steps and let her catch up. Through the shadows, he cast an assessing look at her, she was wild and untamed, like all Romani women, tough as the men and twice as smart if they wanted to be.

She looked at him through her lashes, teeth sinking into the thin red lips and cocked her head invitingly.

“I rent a place in town.” she said, eyes flicking over him, in case he’d missed the intent behind her words.

Peter scratched at his beard and looked back towards the lights of the party, the flicker of figures through the darkness and the sound of music on the evening breeze.

She didn't have cocksucker lips. Wasn’t golden and pure and glowing with pregnancy. She was so unlike everything he’d spent the past year running from, she seemed unreal. She was a good gypsy girl and was everything he should be chasing.

The wolf within him rumbled, smelling the thrill and arousal which leeched off her when he nodded her on ahead to lead the way.

Her place was a two-room apartment above a laundromat with a shared bathroom down the hall. The neon sign of the laundromat cast a blue glow to the cramped rooms, but Peter didn’t spare a look around as he followed Selina into her house, moving through the darkness by the light of the neon as their hands reached for each other.

The wolf thrummed under his skin, close to the surface but still contained. It was closer now that he’d gone against the moon, it frightened him, knowing what he could become if he slipped up and gave into the call of the wolf.

He shifted that feeling and turned it towards Selina. Shifting the hum under his skin towards hunger. It was easy to fuck a girl like Selina. She moved with the slightest prompting and had no qualms about demanding what she wanted.

It was different to sex with Letha, which had felt at once profound and carefree, natural. This was the first time he’d touched a woman like this since Letha and it was a relief how easy it was, how natural it was to kiss her deeply and touch her with roving hands. Selina was responsive, quivering at his touch and moaning when he let himself get rough.

Her bed welcomed them and she fell back against the blankets with a sigh, in the deep shadows of her bedroom, painted in neon blue, she looked otherworldly. Soft curves and hidden places he trailed his hands along before chasing that path with his tongue.

Her pussy was wet and hot, her legs twitched when he ran the coarse hair of his beard against the tender inner flesh of her thighs, so he did it again as he licked moisture from his lips.

Peter's eyes were drawn over her arching body, past the beautiful soft mounds of her breasts, beyond her, to an imaginary Roman who lounged against the closed door, gilded in the hard blue light through the window. His ridiculously tall body was curved as he lifted a glass to his mouth. His soft lips parting around the rim of the glass as he took a slow, leisurely swallow, his pale eyes never moving from Peter, shadowed and intense, so dark they glittered. Roman-in-his-head lowered the glass and his lips glistened with moisture as his tongue snuck out to chase the liquid from his lips before they twisted into an amused smile, the one he’d only share with Peter when they were both in on a joke and it amused the upir to keep it from the rest of the world.

They’d never done this, but there’d always been the whispered suggestion that it could happen, though Peter’s relationship with Letha had been intimate and close, no room for anyone else. Though they’d both known occasionally a ghost slipped between them. Letha had never been the type to want for more and Peter had been so captivated by her, so caught in the innocent glow of her beauty and kindness that he’d never wanted for more, never wanted the cheap fucks with anonymous girls where you can be a little rougher, a little more vulgar, a little more fucked up than usual, because you both knew you were just playing a role for the other person and when you put your clothes back on, none of it fucking mattered anyway.

Tearing his eyes away from the phantom in the room, Peter closed his eyes and lost himself in the soft curves and high sounds of the girl beneath him.

As the dawn light crept into the room, Peter sat up, rummaging around on the floor by the bed for his pants and the packet of cigarettes in his pocket. The lighter clicked and the starter burred in the quiet and he trained his eyes on the tip of the cigarette as he puffed to catch the flame.

The bed squeaked and there was the rustle of sheets behind him. A small hand with rings on its fingers and bangles around its thin wrist traced down his back and along his side. Peter had to stop himself from flinching when her fingers danced over the G on his ribs. His mark of shame, the brand of an outsider. She knew what it was and he wondered vaguely if it got her off, knowing she was being fucked by someone who stood between both worlds, not belonging completely in either.

Taking a heavy drag from his cigarette he lowered it and studied the smoke which twisted and curled off the end and into the hot room. The dawn light was coming in bright and golden through the blinds, cutting shadows across the room and catching on the beads hung over the mirror and getting caught in the sheer scarf draped over the lampshade. “You know,” she said, plucking the cigarette from between his fingers and taking a drag, “most guys are in a rush to get to the main course,” she leant against him and he shifted his shoulder to hold her up as he stole the cigarette back from her. She didn’t notice, mouthing kisses across his shoulder and up to his neck, “it’s nice to meet a guy who takes his time.”

Peter tilted his chin away to give her room and muttered around the butt of the cigarette, “Well, I’m a sensitive guy.” the smoke prickled in his lungs and he held it there for a moment. Roman-in-his-head laughed.

Selina hummed vaguely, her hand drifting from the G on his side to the curl of pubic hair, combing through it with long nails. Peter tilted his chin down to watch. He didn’t think he’d get hard again, but he couldn’t be sure. Most days it felt like the day of the full moon, the wolf close to the surface and his body thrumming with the need to do something.

His phone vibrated against the floor and he pulled away from her arms to reach for it. Crossing the room to look out the window as he answered, he squinted into the sunlight at the street down below, bathed in the bright golden glow of the morning.

“ _That job has been pushed to this afternoon, you good to join us?_ ” Rowland's voice came tinnily over the line. Peter rolled his eyes, if he didn’t go ahead with it, he and Lynda would be packing their bags and getting out of town that night suddenly finding themselves without a couch to crash on.

“Yeah, of course.”

“ _You need to have a chat beforehand?_ ”

“Nah,” Peter lifted the cigarette to his lips and turned to watch as Selina huffed behind him and got out of bed, slipping on a brightly patterned but worn dressing gown before padding barefoot out of the room. “Just tell me where you need me.” His eyes slipped back out the window.

“ _I’ll text you the address. Be there at four._ ”

“I’ll be there.” he assured the other man before hanging up the phone. The wolf under his skin stretched and rumbled with pleasure at the possibility of violence, the thrill of the chase. He quietened it, pushing it back down and retrieved his pants which he pulled on, listening to the rattle of his belt still in the hoops as he pulled them up over his hips.

Jobs like this didn’t usually end in violence, the Romani preferred to run and cut their losses before things descended into violence. But every game had its dangers, and it was a wise player who knew it.

In the small kitchen, Selina was cooking bacon, lit cigarette in one hand and spatula in the other which she used to poke at the contents of the pan periodically. Peters' stomach rebelled with warring desires, for a second he could feel the slick cold grease of the stuff between his fingers and across his face, could smell it clearly as he felt skin tearing and white hot pain. But even as the memories raced through his veins he wanted to sink his teeth into the meat and tear into it.

He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed Selina’s hips, pulling her away from the stove and spinning her to face him. She let out a noise of surprise which turned into a laugh as he lifted her bodily up onto the bench and pressed her thighs apart. Her dressing gown fell away from her and spread like wings across the cluttered bench top as he pulled his dick out and thrust into her before she could finish her laugh of surprise and it tapered off into a groan.  He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the smell of sweat and want from her skin and bared his teeth, groaning as he thrust.

He walked most of the way to the job. He still had the smell of bacon in his nose when he left, his skin felt tacky with old sweat and his hair was knotted and wild where Selina had gripped it and he hadn’t bothered to do more than run his fingers through it.

She’d offered him the shower, but as he tucked himself back into his pants he had already been twitching with the need to leave. She’d kissed him gently at the door, pressing her soft body up against him and smiling like they shared a secret before he closed the door and thudding down the steps to the street below.

The job was being held at a cold-water walk-up somewhere on the other side of town. Surrounded by derelict buildings and fenced-in vacant lots. The pavement outside was cracked concrete with weeds breaking through to freedom. Peter stomped up the steps to the door and pushed through into the dim entrance.

It was abandoned like a few of the other buildings on the block, dust rained down from above and he could hear birds that had roosted in the room to his left, with the boarded over windows when he entered.

Looking around himself, Peter took in the staircase which twisted upwards. It had been done up at some point in the seventies, the bannister plastered up leaving only the old wooden handrail showing. Peter froze when he saw a figure sitting on the railing at the landing of the top floor, a pale face and a dark jacket, hair slicked back and sharp bone structure even more pronounced as he sucked on a cigarette.

Peter could hear a school bell ringing and voices and laughter echoing off linoleum and he was rooted to the spot, feet frozen in time as he looked up at the vision from his past. His breathing echoed loudly in his ears, washing out the remembered sounds of that school, of that town, of that year as his heart beat a mile a minute, thumping in his chest and for a wild, insane moment he thought he was back there, that Roman was four flights above him sucking on his cigarette like a pro and Letha was alive and untouched by his world.

“Cuz, you made it.” Rowland's voice came, loud in his ear and he jerked back from the hand which clapped down on his shoulder.

He rushed back to the here and now with a gasp. His eyes jumped between the three men in front of his as the world swam dizzyingly for a second. He let out a shaky laugh and scratched at his beard as he cracked his neck distractedly.

“Day dreaming.” he said with a laugh. Rowland smiled at him and pulled him in so he could sling his arm over Peter’s shoulder and lead them across the entrance hall and towards a room in the back. 

The marks were two well-dressed men in their forties, with bland expressions to match their dark suits. Peter would have said Feds if Rowland hadn’t told him they weren’t government, but agents of a different sort.

When Peter was twelve, he helped his uncle Rory with a meet in Madisonville, Kentucky. They’d pulled the wool over their eyes, a basic grift they’d played a hundred times before and would play a hundred times again. For whatever reason, something went wrong and two days later, when usually they’d be skipping town, dancing three steps ahead and weaving through the repercussions like they were born to do, the Croats had gotten pissed and beat seven shades of shit out of Rory. He still had the scars and walked with a limp.

The Romani didn’t usually play tricks that made waves, everyone who dealt with gypsies knew what they were in for, and if they didn’t, that was on them.

The business with the suits was fairly mundane. He stood tough, face expressionless and stood with the brothers as Rowland conducted business. The goods in question were a mishmash of artefacts and talismans that Peter couldn’t see a reason for.

“What do they want that shit for?” he asked when the suits and Rowland moved across the room to speak in low voices. The brothers shared a look and seemed to come to some sort of silent agreement before Jessie, the oldest of the two, answered.

“Hunting upir.” Jessie said, spitting to the side as a curse on the name.

“Why?” Peter asked, eyes darting towards the figures, assessing them with new eyes.

“Why? Who the hell cares?” Jessie snapped, as Spud muttered around the butt of the cigarette he’d just rolled. “Who needs a reason?”

The two of them shared a bared teeth grin and Peter was reminded of jocks high-fiving over some stupid stunt.

“How many people have said that about our kind?” Peter asked, low. Keeping his eye steady on the other two, he felt his wolf rumble and growl and he fought to keep his body loose, to not show how his hackles were rising.

“They’re nothing like us.” Spud snapped, face going red and blotchy as anger rushed through him. Jessie, on the other hand, laughed, a mean, slow laugh as he studied Peter.

“I know what this is,” he said over his brother with a leer, “you’ve had a nice hunk of upir pussy, haven’t you? I hear it's wild.” His eyes flickered over Peter again, as though trying to see some kind of mark on him through his clothes. “Would have to be,” he murmured, “why else would a gypsy give a shit about one?” he turned to his brother and they laughed again.

Peter could feel a growl building in his chest, his skin ached with the need to tear apart and for a second he thought about it, about going against the moon again and letting the wolf out like it wanted to. He’d tear through their throats and then turn on the men across the room with their expensive suits and polished shoes. He’d fight until his fur was wet with blood and he could feel bones crack between his-

“Time to celebrate!” Rowland said with a laugh as he approached, a grin spreading across his face. “Another successful day at the office.” He said as he slung an arm over Peter’s shoulder and another over Jessie’s, pulling them close as he guided the lot of them out of the room and towards the entrance.

At the base of the stairs Peter pulled away, patting his pockets for his cigarettes and nodded the boys on ahead of him. With the paper between his lips and his hands sheltering the lighter from an imagined wind, Peter stared into the small orange flame and resisted the urge to look up, to look beyond the twisting staircase to a phantom that wouldn’t be there.

The click of the lighter closing was loud in the empty old building and he couldn’t stop his eyes from looking up towards the banister on the top floor that held nobody. Peter sighed and let his eyes linger.

No matter what Roman was doing, he’d always looked poised, like a camera might snap a picture of him at any moment. At first, Peter had thought it’d been contrived, some rich boy posturing, playing at being the bad boy who was fluid and poised and seemed to promise sex or violence in every move. But he’d realised at some point that that was just how Roman was, his indifference to his surroundings, whether it was opulent or decaying, didn’t falter. Roman was bored with the world and his place in it. He was just built different to everybody else, like he got a double helping of charm or fluidity or fucking something when the rest of the saps in line got less than they were prescribed.

With a shake of his head, Peter looked away from the bannister and hurried to catch up with the others, ducking past Jesse and Spud who were jostling for the front seat as Rowland talked on the phone, leaning against the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette and nodding at whatever he was being told.

Peter jerked the door to the back open with a screech of old metal and sunk into the torn vinyl seat, rubbing at his forehead with the base of his palm holding his cigarette. The wolf was restless, keyed up from being so close to the surface and being forcibly shoved back under.

Taking a long, steadying drag of his cigarette Peter let his eyes search the pale blue sky for the moon’s shadow, so pale against the daytime sky. It was over a week until the next full moon. He took another deep drag from his cigarette and begged it to sooth his nerves. Something was building, he could feel it in his balls. The more the wolf within him howled and the more he saw Roman, like a spectre from the murky shadows of his past, the more he knew something big was coming, something which was pulling him back to that place

The car jostled as the others got in, Spud grinning over his shoulder at them from the front seat as Rowland started the engine with a loud rumble. Music blared loudly from the stereo, familiar fiddle rushing at them with force. Jesse let out a laugh and the car sped out of the empty lot. Another hustle, another job done. Peter scratched at his chin absently and rested his head against the back of the seat, his eyes going heavy lidded as he watched the town shoot past.

It seemed unfair to be haunted by someone who was still alive; when those that had passed had left this world in horror and pain, but despite that, had left peacefully.

Lynda was worried about him, she didn’t say anything but her eyes followed him when he paced the property and when he slipped out to walk the town. There were no woods he could lose himself in and on his most wired days he was almost thankful for that. He knew, in his heart of hearts, if he’d been able to disappear between the trees, his boots sinking into the soft, fertile earth of a wild and undisturbed place it would be that much harder to pull the wolf back and he would tear from his skin and run beneath the bad moon with barely a second thought, he’d lose himself to the wolf which was awakened in him now.

They hadn’t really talked about what happened, what Peter had had to do to stop the Vargulf, but they didn’t need to. Lynda had looked at her son and seen how he’d changed. She hadn’t said anything about how he ached from the turn and woke up some nights gasping for breath with hands at his throat.

But when he returned from the hospital, grief staining his skin, she’d packed up the trailer without a word as he shaved his head in the small bathroom and together they’d left.

The grief eased, but the roaming, restless call of the bad moon persisted.

He did jobs for Rowland, stood strong and severe and pretended his eyes weren’t always searching for the weak spot, the jugular, the places where he could sink his teeth into and tear.

Most of the time, he wandered, sometimes setting out when he was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Other times resisting until the shadows had lengthened and night was creeping into the corners of the unremarkable town.

It was two days before the full moon, as he was walking along the main street smoking his sixth cigarette in two hours, when he jerked to a stop at a newsstand, body freezing before his eyes even fully registered what he’d seen.

The owner of the stand grumbled unhappily when Peter lifted the magazine from the racks.

Roman looked cocky, chin jutted forward, one hand casually in his pant pocket. The panel of his suit jacket flicked back to show a glimpse of a belt Peter bet cost more than Lynda’s car. Roman wore thousand dollar suits with an ease and indifference other people could only dream of.

Flicking the magazine open, he rifled through the pages of dense text and graphs interspersed with glossy pictures looking for the right page.

“Hey!” the stall owner snapped as he finished with a guy buying a newspaper, “this ain’t a library, you buy or you go.”

Peter shot him a look, his hold on the magazine twitching as though someone was going to grab it away from him. Looking down at the cover he told himself to put it back, him owning a copy of _Business Magazine_ was enough to make his gypsy heart cry out in pain.

He dug into his pocket and extracted a couple of crumpled notes which he tossed on the small counter and turned away, his prize clutched in his sweaty hands. It felt illicit, like he was a kid that had just brought his first porn mag and desperately wished nobody would ever know.

He read the article twice, not really interested in the dealings of the white tower and Godfrey Industries, but he still took in every word, parsing through the language of the magazine to gleam that at eighteen, Roman is the youngest CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company in North America and that the transition had been seamless and he was taking an active role in the company and seemingly doing well.

He looked cold, a little cocky, a little challenging and just like an eighteen-year-old business executive on the up and up.

Peter couldn’t bring himself to throw the magazine out, though he felt foolish keeping it. He buried it deep into his bag and hoped vaguely that he could bury the complicated feelings he had for the other boy just as easily.

The dreams suggested he couldn’t. As the moon got fuller, the dreams became more insistent. Some nights it was the tranquil dreams where they shared space and breath, connected beyond words. Some nights he was in his wolf form and all he knew was a thirst which was foreign to the wolf who’d only ever knew hunger.

Then there were cryptic dreams which knocked the breath from his lungs and slipped in on the coattails of the dreams drenched in hunger and blood and the moon. They were fuzzy, like a badly tuned tv set and crackled with messages he didn’t understand.

Waking from those dreams was always the worst. The wolf under his skin felt too big to contain and his blood coursed with adrenaline and a driving need to _do something_.

The day of the full moon was almost a relief. Lynda watched him with the same worry she’d worn since his first turn when he hit maturity, but Peter couldn’t ignore the whisper of relief she let slip as she drank deeply from her bottle of whisky as she watched him prepare.

They’d driven two hours outside of town to where he could run freely. Lynda settled in on the hood of the car, she’d drive around for some of the night but eventually camp out in the car and wait for dawn to break and her son to return.

Peter began his rituals, easing the howl of the wolf under his skin by stripping himself of his human markings. Lynda held out the silver bowl he kept his jewellery in, removing each ring in the same order before bowing his head to remove the necklaces from around his neck. The actions were familiar, ingrained into him since his childhood by Nickolai and enforced by his mother. It was the ritualised stripping of humanity and with each step, he felt closer to the wolf.

After the moon set, he would crawl, aching and beaten back into his human flesh and the act of donning the jewellery, of replacing the symbols of his people would be like closing the door on that part of his nature for another month.

The ritual seemed extra important now that he felt the wolf so keenly all the time. Back in Hemlock Grove, Lynda had been nervous of Roman making jokes, of calling the wolf Peter and Peter the wolf. She’d looked like he wanted to hit him when he made jokes, but Peter had liked it.

To Roman, there had been no distinction between the wolf and the boy. The wolf that tore itself from his flesh was just another side to Peter and to Roman, the transformation wasn’t a torture the human must endure, it wasn’t inhumane and ugly, it was beautiful and freeing in a fucked up barbaric way.

Peter had never seen the change from the outside, only experienced it, felt his bones crack and his organs shift, felt skin tear. It was blood and gore but it was also freeing, like being released. Nobody but Roman had ever really understood that, he could see that the taller boy had from the look in those impossible eyes.

As the moon rose, heavy-bellied and pregnant in the sky, Peter gave himself over to the change which had been prickling under his skin for weeks.

When the moon set, Peter staggered out of the park towards where Lynda was waiting in the car. He shivered in the cold morning air and held himself, as though to keep his new skin from coming apart at the seams. He felt fragile, blood in his mouth and nerves on high alert making even the cool morning breeze like nettles across the skin.

Lynda passed him some clothes and held out the silver bowl without a word. When they’d climbed into the car, she started the engine and the radio blared to life.

“I got a call last night.” she opened as she reversed out of the small carpark and bumped their way onto the makeshift road. “Joe Lovell died in the night.” she informed him and settled properly into the seat, passing Peter another bottle of water and a truck stop sandwich she’d bought at some point last night. “We’ll go back to the Cortes’s and head on over to the funeral. They’ll probably want to travel with us.”

“Where were they living?” Peter asked around a mouthful of bread.

“Conneaut.” she said as she turned out of the nature reserve and onto the road. Peter grunted.

He dozed for the rest of the trip back. When they made it back to Rowland’s place they were already packing for the trip and he ate again as he moved his own possessions into Lynda’s car to begin the journey.

Romani funerals were big events, with food and music and milling crowds of families who came at the news to share in the grief and celebrate the life. After the festivities, the closest relatives would remove the head from the body and bury them with his feet pointing north, always wandering, even in death.

The two families of the Rumancek and the Cortes made it to the funeral in the early afternoon and parked their car amongst the crowds which were already there. 

They made their goodbyes to Joe, who sat proud and regal in his ornate chair, remaining as he’d died. It was the time for settling grievances if they had any, letting the dead pass without regrets or unfinished business. 

Duty done, Peter separated from Lynda as they made the rounds. Peter talked with a few of the people he knew, cousins and close friends of the family. It was always a big thing when they came together like this, everyone within travelling distance made their way at the call and helped to bury the dead. Joe had been old for longer than anyone could remember, he was a grandfather to every Romani he met and knew them all by name, mind clear and sharp right to the end.

Helping himself to a drink, Peter found a clear patch of space to settle into and watch the milling crowds. Some of them looked at him, darting glanced from the corner of their eyes. Nickolai set himself outside this world and some clans were slower to forgive than others. Lynda was welcome, she was loved, a strong, true Romani woman but she surrounded herself with bad blood, raised a son who was wolf and had a father that was a betrayer as well as a wolf.

Sighing, he shifted his eyes to the line of people making their goodbyes in the front room. They’d been here a few hours already and would be here long into the night, most likely into the morning.

He started when hands rested across his eyes and the smell of sweat and patchouli met his nose.

“Guess who?” Destiny was already laughing when Peter peeled her hands away from his face and they pulled each other into a hug, “Man, I missed you, cuz.” she breathed, leaning her weight against him, knowing he would hold her up.

Peter buried his face in her curls, breathing her in. “Man, I didn’t think you’d make it.” he confessed. She lived further than the Cortes, and while she might have heard early last night, there was no guarantee she’d have made it that day.

She pulled out of his arms and flicked her hair, hands gesturing as she started talking. Her wrists didn’t chime like some of the other Romani girls with bells and bangles. She existed outside like Peter did, maybe not viewed with the same scorn, the same disgust the wolf warranted, but she was a fortune teller and a seer, she was other just the same and her clothing showed how she’d never be like Lynda and never be like the girls like Selina.

“I ran out of gas outside Altona and got followed into a lady’s room at a truck stop outside Youngstown. Had to do some serious ass kicking. But I’m here now.” she laughed again, bright and beautiful as her eyes drifted around the house and coming to settle on Joe. “Oh man, Joe used to bounce me on his knee when I was little,” her eyes returned to Peter and a wicked smiled curled at her lips, “he was old as the hills and twice as wrinkled even then.” another laugh. Peter had missed her, she was one of his oldest and closest friends and he’d felt her loss keenly when they left. But she knew how it was, she’d never begrudge him leaving and they’d always find each other again. It was the gypsy way.

“How’s your life?” he asked quietly. She shrugged, her long waves swaying with the movement.

“You show up every day. It’s lonely now with you all gone.” she confessed, nothing accusing in her tone, just saying what she felt, like she always did.

“Mom and I are heading out west in a couple of weeks. Seattle.” it was something they’d talked about on the way over, the both knowing it was time to move on, the wind calling them and the jobs for Rowland were coming more frequently and looked like they’d start to get riskier. “Why don’t you come with?” he offered, a spark of hope lighting in his chest at the thought of it, of Destiny joining them like the sister she was in everything but name.

“Caffeine and drizzle?” she asked dryly. Peter shrugged.

“What’s left for you back in Hemlock Grove?” he pushed.

He took a deep swallow from his drink, god it hurt to say the words, to name the place he had been running from. But now that it was out of his mouth, had thrummed his vocal cords and reverberated out of his mouth he felt a catch release, like naming it had weakened some of its power over him.

“Maybe,” Destiny offered kindly, “Let me think about it.” it was a kindness he didn’t need to give and they both knew it. Her decision to stay in Hemlock Grove was as decided as the setting sun. That place had its own hold over her. She switched topics, leaning in conspiratorially “Man, would you look at all these old farts?” she said with a giggle.

Peter was opening his mouth to tell her about the pissing match Joe’s younger brothers had engaged in before she’d arrived but was interrupted by Lynda hurrying through the crowd, making a beeline for Peter when she spotted him.

She did a double take when she saw who he was talking to and Peter smiled when the two women pulled each other into a hug and laughed, bright and happy and loud like two friends reuniting after years.

Releasing Destiny, Lynda kept one hand on her arm as she turned to Peter. “You need to meet your aunt Sonja.” she informed him, a no-nonsense tone to her voice.

Before he could reply, Destiny interrupted. “Okay, I haven’t peed in 200 miles, I’ll be right out.” she excused herself and weaved her way deeper into the house, leaving Peter to be pulled away by his mom.

His aunt Sonja was an old, cone-like woman who inspected him with sharp, dark eyes and spoke to Lynda in rapid-fire Romanian in a low voice Peter couldn’t catch.

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, though it happened less for him than for many of his people. Not everyone wanted a Rumancek. He watched Lynda work, deferential and sweet to an elder but with a note of steel through her.

When she ushered aunt Sonja away, Peter sunk down onto the old armchair in the corner and set his jaw as Lynda returned to his side.

“What was that about?” he asked, keeping his voice cold. It was the first time since Letha that this topic had come up and he knew if it hadn’t been the full moon the night before, he would be struggling with the wolf.

“She has a girl for you. One who will scrub your floors and bare you many children.” she met his eyes when he cut her a dark look.

“What girl?” he asked because that was his role. it’d be some sweet young thing from the old country without a word of English who had no idea what she was marrying, escaping her own trouble most likely.

Lynda shrugged, shooting a look towards where Sonja had disappeared into the milling crowds. Peter leant sideways to see if he could spot her and perhaps the girl.

“Pretty?” he asked. Lynda bit back a smile.

“Clean floors are nothing to sneeze on. At.” her smile went sad at the look Peter levelled at her.  "You would have been a good father, a good husband.” she told him and Peter felt grief build in his throat, “I know it seems impossible now, but someone else will come along.” she reached across the space and patted his leg, "Letha’s gone. Let her go.” It wasn’t the first time they’d talked about losing Letha, but it was the first time it hadn’t ripped him apart to hear her name which seemed to encapsulate the entire world he’d lost when he lost her. He wondered vaguely, if this was what healing felt like, “Let’s get something to eat.”  Lynda said, catching a glimpse of Destiny through the people. Peter dutifully followed.

They started the bonfire of Joe’s possessions at dusk. Peter watched from the porch as the fire started, burning bright and hot as it was fed the remnants of a long life.

He’d never been to a gadjo funeral but he’d seen them in movies and when he passed cemeteries in his travels. He’d imagined Letha’s in his darkest moments, knowing her family it would have been immaculate, a glossy casket with polished handles and flowers in glass vases. Roman would be there, beside his austere, frightening mother, both striking in their beauty and grief.

Letha’s mother and father would be the pictures of stoic sadness. Imagining it, he couldn’t help but think it would be staged. A Godfrey funeral, even one for someone as pure and good and loved as Letha, was a spectacle in a way entirely different to a Romani funeral.

Watching Joe’s possessions burn, Peter thought about what Lynda had said, about letting her go. He’d been carrying her death and the death of her child with him in a way the Romani never did. The dead need to rest, they need to move on and those that remain behind must let them do that.

With a sigh, as sparks shot up into the sky and some of the younger kids let up a cry of excitement, Peter opened his heart and began the slow process of healing.

Destiny appeared beside him, resting a bottle of beer on the railing and watched as Joe’s nephew threw an ornate rug onto the bonfire. It resisted the flames for a moment before going up in a whoosh of flames and smoke.

“You okay, cuz?” Destiny asked, breaking the quiet. She shifted against the porch railing to look at him properly, crossing her arms over her chest as she studied him.

“Yeah, course.” Peter murmured, taking a long drag off his cigarette. Destiny watched the smoke he breathed out, tracking it as it drifted away into the night breeze.

“You know,” she said after a prolonged moment, “you’re welcome to stay with me.” she finished, sounding hesitant.

“What?” Peter asked, head jerking around to face her. She lifted her chin and met his eyes.

“Stay with me.” she repeated in that way she had sometimes, firm with an undertone of _knowing_. Never outright saying, but always guiding.

“I can’t go back there.” he rasped. Destiny studied him closely, taking in the way his fingers shook just slightly around his cigarette as he lifted it to his lips.

“Who you trying to convince there, cuz?” she asked, low before turning away and slipping into the shadows, immediately being pulled into a conversation with a ruddy-faced woman Peter vaguely recognised.

Something was pulling him back to Hemlock Grove. He could feel it in his balls and Nickolai always told him to trust his balls.

Whatever it was, it was pulling him in, dragging him back and he was getting tired of resisting. Fighting it in his dreams was hard enough, especially the dreams he wanted to sink into and never wake from. But in the day he had to stay alert too, had to keep the whispers away while ignoring the phantom Roman who haunted him more than Letha ever did.

When dawn crested the horizon, the gathering began to break up. Some Romani would stay, others would reroute their journeys from where they’d been heading and some, like Destiny, would begin the journey home.

Peter watched as Destiny made her goodbyes, fiddling with a cigarette he wasn’t sure he was going to light. When Lynda leant against the car, brushing shoulders with him, he looked up at her from beneath his fringe.

“You going with her, aren’t you?” she asked, already knowing the answer as she watched Destiny. Peter crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at his boots. He wasn’t sure he’d even made the decision consciously, but that didn’t seem to matter. Whatever it was that was pulling him back to Hemlock Grove had its claws in and it would be satisfied.

Lynda turned to look at him. “Oh, my dear boy.” she breathed, taking his face in her calloused hands she kissed his forehead before lifting his face to better see him. “You’ve always been meant for more than I can protect you from. Dza devlesa.” she said with a tremble in her voice. Peter pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair like he used to do when he was a child. She let out a watery laugh and squeezed him tight, murmuring Romanian blessings into his hair. When they pulled apart, Destiny approached, letting out a laugh when Lynda pulled her into a hug. The two women held a low, murmured conversation before pulling apart. Lynda patted Peter's arm as the three of them wordlessly crossed to Lynda’s car to transfer Peter's life to Destiny’s hatchback

Lynda watched them leave. As they turned onto the road and she disappeared from view, Peter listened to Destiny and settled in for a nap, the sounds from the radio mixing with the familiar soundtrack of the road, lulled him to sleep easily.

He dreamt of white masks, of a crying child and the sound of gravel shifting. There was a bridge, a snake, a man’s face and a baby’s cry, a bowing man before a figure in black robes. He could feel air rushing past and the sound of breaking wood. He could taste dust and blood and something slick and dangerous. The snake tied itself in knots and the sunset. A golden thread pulled tight, taut as a wire and at the end of it, Peter knew Roman was holding on.

He woke disoriented with a crick in his neck. Clearing his throat, he glanced at Destiny to see her hands squeezing tight around the steering wheel as she shot him looks as she weaved through the cars.

“Some dream you were having.” she murmured. Peter grunted and searched around the foot well for the bottle of water he knew was down there. Uncapping the bottle, he drained the last third of warm water and scrubbed at his face, trying to rub the sleep from his skin.

“You peeking in?” he asked, shooting her a glance.

“No.” she flicked her head and adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. Peter was almost disappointed. He wouldn’t have minded some guiding words

“Lucky you.” he breathed, sinking back into the passenger seat and switching his gaze to the traffic they weaved through.

He could feel Hemlock Grove rushing closer, the wolf thrummed under his skin and his stomach writhed. It wasn’t the ghosts of Letha and the baby which set him on edge, wasn’t the memories of that year which was making him gun-shy. No, he knew why he was so nervous to return, why he’d resisted for so long. It was guilt. Guilt and fear for leaving like he had and not even letting Roman know he was going.

It was the first time in his life Peter felt the need to apologise for his family’s ways, for listening to his gypsy blood and cutting his loses.

Roman had been his best friend, his only friend. He may have been upir, may have been cruel and rich and different from Peter, but they’d forged a bond together. Been drawn together from the first day he saw him, smoking and aloof in the school.

It was hard to remember, in the cluster-fuck of that year, that they’d done normal teenage shit too, stayed up late, ate pizza and watched bad movies. They’d talked shit and been normal teenage boys, perhaps for the first time in either of their lives,

They’d been children, hunting monsters and playing at being knights, they’d cocooned themselves in a make-believe world where what they were and the things they did had no consequences. Where they could be friends despite everything telling them otherwise.

In the shelter of the school, between classes and homework, they could be the outcasts, could collect sideways glances and stares from their peers like pennies from a wishing well and none of it mattered. They were in on a giant joke that nobody else knew about and it was great. Together, they were great.

Roman had liked the way people had looked at him when he talked to the gypsy freak, had enjoyed being looked at. And Peter, Peter had been drawn to the other boy, pulled into his orbit and hadn’t really wanted to resist.

Roman had smelt of upir, of sadness, madness and a twist of kindness like lemon. Their souls were linked, knotted together with golden thread which only weaved tighter the longer they spent together.

And now that thread was pulling Peter back, dragging him back to the blood-soaked woods and the strange boy who he’d left there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine and sorry!
> 
> Sex in this chapter so the rating earns its place.   
> Enjoy the story, and more soon

Roman dreamt of a snake through loose gravel, the scales along its back glimmered against the pale dust of the earth. Falling forward, he plunged into darkness as a white mask rushed towards him, empty eyed and expressionless. There was a bridge, a sunrise, a tree limb falling, hiking boots and the flash of a sign. There was the taste of dust and blood and the snake met another, weaving their bodies closer.

 

In the dim shadows of his bedroom, Roman opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. He felt cold, though he knew the house was maintained at the ideal temperature, year-round.

When he lifted his hands to rub at his face, trying to rub the impression of the dreams from under his skin, his limbs felt weighed down and sluggish. A groan tore out of him when he stretched, pulling each muscle until they ached.

He remained where he was as the light through the window shifted to proper morning. It was quiet in his room, dark and isolated from the rest of the world and for this time before he got up and became _Roman Godfrey_ the world didn’t seem so exhausting, so lonely.

When the time on his bedside clock ticked over and the alarm blared, he was seated on the edge of the bed, sheets pushed aside as he flexed his bare toes against the dark carpet. He had a board meeting today, he remembered, some presentation for a new advertising campaign for one of their new lines. Breathing in a deep breath, he pushed aside the memory of the dreams and the thread of connection he always felt along with them and levered himself off the bed to begin his day.

Dressed and washed, He made his way into Nadia’s room, nodding along to whatever Anna was saying he peered in at his daughter. She was getting bigger every day, the development unfolding before his eyes. He’d been worried it was unnatural, some mutation which came from the fucked-up circumstances of her conception and the unnatural creature her father turned out to be. Anna and the internet searches he’d spent nights parsing through assured him it was normal, but it still unnerved him.

She was standing up, holding on to the side of her crib and staring at him with her wide blue eyes. Anna talked as she prepared for the day, lining up everything she’d need to bathe Nadia and pulling books and toys she planned to use that day from the drawers they were kept in. Nadia glanced at her briefly before turning her wide eyes back on Roman. He tried to see Letha in her, he supposed he could see her in the blond hair and the milk and honey hue to her skin, but Letha’s eyes had been more green than Nadia’s were. He wondered vaguely where that shade of blue came from, his mind ticking over the genetics lessons from high school, recessive and dominant genes, hereditary traits. He wondered if upir was a dominant gene. He supposed not, thinking of the babies Olivia had before Roman.

Anna ushered him out of his daughter’s room and he escaped down stairs to the kitchen. Crossing the large, open room he opened the fridge and pulled out a large glass bottle.

The drink Pryce gave him was like a soothing balm over open razor wounds which lined his throat. Before that night, before becoming what he now is, it had been a craving, a spice so intertwined with arousal and adrenaline. It was more like a kink than an addiction. He could lick his own blood from his fingers or eat out a girl on her period and it was a thrill, it was like fire in his bloodstream and lingered in his mind long after the taste had faded. But now the hunger hurt. He’d nearly gone mad before Pryce had shown him the labs in the sub-basement of the white tower.

He could still remember the euphoria which had raced through him at the first moment of reprieve, that second when the drink hit his bloodstream and slipped down his throat. He hadn’t known, not really, how bad it had gotten until that moment.

In the echoing quiet of his kitchen he took a deep drink from the bottle and felt the burn of thirst in his throat be soothed. It wasn’t like blood, not really. Blood was hot and electric in his mouth, it carried with it the history of its being. It didn’t taste of anything but blood, but even so, it was somehow more alive than the viscous drink Pryce kept him on.

His phone buzzed across the kitchen counter and he eyed it as he took another deep drink from the bottle. His assistant Patrick’s name flashed across the screen and Roman thought about ignoring it, but he knew he’d just be pissed at himself and Patrick if he missed an update so soon before a board meeting. Pryce might have secured freedom to do as he pleased in the labs now that he was in control of the cure to Roman’s hunger, but that didn’t mean Roman was going to let any of them try and slip something past him.

“What?” he barked into the phone as he replaced the bottle in the fridge and closed it with a bang. Patrick stuttered before diving in straight away to why he’d called. That was why he kept Patrick on, he was annoying and hungry for career advancement and had a crush on Roman which unsettled him a little, but he was good at his job, did what he was told and bent over backwards to get the job done and Roman as prepared as possible.

He listened as he checked in on Anna and Nadia in the bathroom before grabbing his keys and heading to the white tower.

 

His days were routine, meetings and briefings and more paperwork and research to wade through than he could have ever imagined. It was worthwhile work which left him tired when he went home in the afternoon to his big empty house, and his daughter who frightened him. Roman didn’t want room to think, didn’t want time to linger over the dreams which hounded him at night and the memories and thirst which plagued him in his waking hours.

It was easier to be lonely but busy instead of just lonely.

He yelled at Patrick when he brought Roman his lunch, just because he could and he found the way the shorter man flushed with arousal and impotent anger amusing. He’d always enjoyed being cruel, Letha had disapproved, telling him he was better than that, but Peter had found it amusing, though he’d tried to deny it for reasons Roman had never really understood.

The afternoon was spent, as they so often were, with his headphones blocking the world out as he sifted through more files that needed his signature.

When he finally made it home, he had enough energy to drink some of Pryce’s drink, and watch as Anna read Nadia a bedtime story before crawling into his own bed, praying for empty sleep.

That was the pattern for most of his days, a constant, easy routine which allowed the days and weeks to slip by unremarkably. Some days the itch under his skin was stronger. A nagging, clawing thing he couldn’t seem to reach until he gave in and drove across town to a bar, where he’d buy a beautiful girl a drink and tell her what she wanted to hear. They all gave it up in the end, they were all the same and the familiarity of the dance was comforting. With their breathy gasps filling his ears he could run his tongue along their throats and feel the hum of blood under their skin, could almost taste it. Resisting was almost more of a high than giving in would be, and he clung to that.

If he was too tired for the charade, he went to the motel by the highway and paid to spend some time with one of the girls. He liked the ones with bruises, where the blood was close to the surface and he could almost convince himself they wouldn’t mind a set of teeth marks on their throats.  

 

He was with Nadia when the front door buzzer went off. Nadia looked away from the blocks she was playing with on the floor and turned her face towards the door to her room. Roman stood up from the crouch he’d been watching her in against the wall, and left the room. Waving Anna into the bedroom as he exited into the hall and glanced at the monitor.

He thought he’d be more surprised than he was to see the rumpled, shabby form of Peter Rumancek on his front doorstep. His finger pressed the release button before he even had time to think. He heard the echoing click from the front door and it felt like a punch to his guts. He breathed out a slow breath before turning to the stairs as he heard the front door open.

Roman had thought he’d know if Peter ever returned to Hemlock Grove. Maybe something in the dreams would betray the distance, or he’d just _know_ , deep in his guts or in his blood, his atoms pulled towards the other man like it seemed they always had.

But the truth was, he’d had no idea Peter was back in town, had no idea how long he’d been there and hadn’t tried to get in contact with Roman, and that stung.

He couldn’t help but wonder if their senior year hadn’t meant as much to Peter as it had for Roman, hadn’t ruined him and left him scarred with nobody else ever able to understanding what he’d been through.

And maybe it hadn’t. Maybe that was what Peter did. Maybe he made a habit of swanning into town with his gypsy ways and traditions, standing out from the rest of the dumb fucks that lived there until he snagged one and proceeded to ruin everything, tear open their fucking world and upheave everything before disappearing without a word and leaving people like Roman in their dust and the chaos they’d dumped them into.

He looked out of place in Roman’s house amidst the modern art and expensive furniture. He looked just like the Peter that had left, a little thinner maybe, with dark bags staining the skin under his eyes, but still fundamentally the same, still foreign in that gypsy way.

“Nice digs.” Peter said when his visual pursuit of the place landed on Roman who was watching him from the top of the stairs. When Roman didn’t offer anything, Peter shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “Look, I know things were bad when I split-” he started.

“Fuck you.” Roman spat, it landed against Peter like a blow and Roman wanted to strike him again.

“Look,” Peter said through gritted teeth and looked up at him imploringly, “just hear me out.”

Roman shook his head. “Not interested.”

“Please.” Peter said with a hint of desperation colouring his voice. Roman wanted to make him beg, wanted to send him to his knees and make him grovel. He could taste the cruelty he’d unleash on him, pouring the darkness, the hurt and anger which had been his only companions in the long year the other man had been gone.

“We’re done.” Roman snapped, Peter’s own words slipping darkly from his own

mouth. It felt good to deny him, to watch him squirm. To deny him when he’d spent the year they’d known each other chasing after him, begging for a scrap of his attention. At the start, he’d liked how Peter was always slipping through his fingers, walking off with a cheeky smile and a cocksure swagger. Roman wasn't used to being denied what he wanted.

He’d wanted to possess him, to claim him and mark him as his own. But it was different now. Now all he could feel was the agony of grief he’d been living with, the loneliness that filled his days and the way his sobs had echoed through the empty trailer in the woods.

“You’re having the dreams.” Peter said, low and insistent.

“So?” Roman asked, though it felt hollow. Peter heard it in his voice and set his jaw, shifting his weight as he looked up at him.

“Look, be mad at me but you know what happened last time we ignored them.” It was easy from his position high above the other man to remain cold, to not be bombarded with the horror show memories of what happened last time they’d ignored the dreams.

“You think I don’t know? My sister is dead because of it.” Roman snapped. Peter flinched but it didn’t feel like enough.

“I think about her all the time. She could still be out there-”

“She died alone.” he barked “and when Letha died, when I needed you,” he stabbed at his chest, the point of his finger digging into his sternum as he started to descend the steps. “you tucked your dick in between your legs and ran away like the little fucking bitch you are.” the words poured out of him, riding on the fury and anger which had been building for a year, festering in his bloodstream. He breathed in a deep breath through his nose to push the hunger down which had reared up along with the fury. “Get out of my house.” he growled. He hated himself for wanting to cry, for his voice growing tight as the feelings he’d buried for a year were released.

He wanted Peter to refuse, to push the issue so Roman could _make_ him leave, so he could rip and tear and scream his anger as he drew blood from the other man.

“Roman-” Peter started,

“Get out of my house.” he spat with bared teeth.

Sucking his lower lip into his mouth, Peter bit down on it as he looked at Roman for a long, pregnant moment before nodding once and leaving without another word.

 

Roman watched him go from the upstairs window. Eyes hungry for another look at the other man. He looked out of place, he always did anywhere that wasn’t the woods or somewhere equally derelict and apart from the world Roman inhabited.

At the driveway, Peter paused. Looking back over his shoulder and up at the window Roman was watching him from, as though knowing he’d see him there. Some childish part of Roman wanted to duck out of view and pretend he hadn’t been watching, but that was never a game they’d played. Since the moment they met, Roman had found it hard to tear his eyes away from the gypsy.

When Peter turned away and headed towards a beaten up old hatchback. Roman watched just long enough to see him into the car before turning away from the window. His feet carried him to Nadia and he leant against the doorjamb to her room, watching her play and forced his mind to calm, to not linger on any one thought.

It was a trick he’d learnt in the year since his world fell apart. He trained himself to be emotionless, to not allow his thoughts to dictate his feelings and to not fall victim to them. He would never let himself become a pawn in another person’s game because he couldn’t handle his emotions.

It was easier with work. Buried in the dense reports, scientific language and marketing lingo his own problems became insignificant. He wasn’t the father to a secret child who was the product of incestrious rape, he wasn’t working a job he was too young for, he wasn’t his mother’s puppet or her killer. He wasn’t a monster who lived off a science experiment to quench a hunger which lead to nothing but violence, blood and madness. He wasn’t alone. He was just another cog in the machine, just another part of the organisation of the white tower.

 

For the next few days he let himself be held up by his work and lost himself in the meetings and paperwork Patrick piled up around him. He snapped at the assistants and the department heads. He ran over the costings with a fine-tooth comb and questioned every variance until every member of the organisation was raw and exposed. Gritting their teeth to keep the words they wanted to shout at him at bay.

He tortured Patrick, just because he could, because that was easier than examining the bruised feeling of his own emotions and the gnawing, nagging worry that Peter would leave again without a word. And the equally daunting thought that he might not leave, and he’d see him again.

 

At home, he was at once drawn to and repelled by his daughter. She played happily and cried often, switching between the emotions at breakneck speed and left Roman and Anna exhausted trying to keep up. Sometimes she looked at Roman as though waiting for something, expectant and wide eyed, and looking so much like her mother when Letha knew Roman was keeping something from her which she wanted to know.

Those moments hurt the worst.

 

After an argument with Pryce, Roman didn’t drive home like he had every other night that week. Instead, he pointed his headlights towards the next town over. The club choices were only marginally better than in Hemlock Grove, but they were larger, and not every single person there recognised him. That small amount of anonymity allowed him to feel reckless, allowed him to pursue with intent, to see a girl he wanted and to take her.

It was an easy game. Say the right thing, wear the right clothes, look just disinterested enough and they were putty in his hands. He wasn’t here to find a wife or a soul match, he was here to lose himself in someone else for a while, to push the thirst away and pretend it was thirst of a different kind.

The girl he chose that night was pretty and knew it, she was long legs and dark hair, hooded eyes and pouty lips. Her neck curved elegantly under his hand and her blood rushed beneath her skin. If she’d been paler she would have blushed more and Roman would have laved his tongue across the flush and imagine he could taste the fire of her blood and it would almost be enough.

 

The house was asleep when he returned, sometime after midnight. He stood in the dim kitchen and drank deeply from Pryce’s drink, straining his hearing for any sound from the quiet house. There was nothing but the humming of the fridge and the faint sound of a car passing on the road outside. He could still smell the woman on his skin, and her perfume had seeped into his clothes. Abruptly, he felt dirty. Returning his bottle to the fridge he made his way upstairs, already undoing the buttons of his shirt and thinking about the shower as he moved through the darkness.

Under the rush of water from the shower head he let his mind go hazy with exhaustion, let his muscles melt from the rigid tension he held himself in. For the moment, he wasn’t thirsty. He was fed and fucked and he could feel sleep pulling him down at the edges. He was so tired, all the time.

There was a time in his life where he’d slept easily, falling into bed at the end of the day and waking the next, refreshed and rejuvenated. But that was years ago, now, before Sherrie, Letha, Peter and the thirst. Now his dreams were enough to send him out of his mind, ill formed and overladen with symbolism and metaphor, exhausting and terrifying and confusing in equal measures. The restful dreams, the ones where he and Peter lay still and at peace together, touching and breathing as one in the close, warm intimacy of a bed, were torture in a different way. Those dreams were hard to wake from and lingered long after the schizophrenic visions forced on him.  

With a growl, he shut off the shower and rubbed water from his face as he exited the shower, reaching for a towel. He gave himself a perfunctory pat down before falling into bed and closing his eyes, letting sleep pull him under.

 

There was a buzz he thought might be from neon’s, railway tracks and the shadowy silhouette of trees against the sky. Mobile homes, the white mask, linoleum flooring, a road, snake, mask, blood, creaking screen doors and empty tracks.

Roman woke to the familiar darkness of his room.

 

He was pulling up behind a grotty trailer before he even realised he wasn’t in his bed like he was meant to be. He stared at the busted tail light of the trailer through his windshield for a moment as he toyed with the thought of starting the ignition and going back home.

The night was cool and crisp when he opened the car door and it knocked the last of the sleep from him as he stepped out onto the rough gravel ground and looked around at the darkened trailer park. He had no idea what he was doing here, what he would even look for, but he set out anyway, moving between the small houses quietly and let his subconscious guide him. It had brought him this far, it could do some of the fucking work.

He felt like an idiot skulking around between the makeshift streets of the trailer park. He heard what might have been voices towards his left and turned to follow it. When Peter rounded the corner of the trailer Roman drew up short. Peter stared up at him, wide eyed and mouth falling open in shock.  

"Mother fucker" Roman muttered and turned on his heel and headed back to his car. He heard the scuff of Peter’s shoes on the loose gravel but he didn’t slow his steps and pushed his long legs to his advantage, eating up the distance to his car and starting the engine before Peter caught up. It didn’t deter the gypsy and he kept pace beside Roman’s car, bending low to speak to him through the window.

"You don’t think this is worth stopping for five minutes for?" Peter asked.

Roman cut him a dry look, "Five minutes, maybe. Stopping, no." he said and felt a coil of satisfaction when Peter huffed with annoyance but kept pace with him.

"The guy from the other dream. His name was Robert Dexter.”

"Fascinating." Roman said, as dry as the desert and pressed his foot a little harder against the gas pedal. He didn’t want to know the names of these people, didn’t want anything to do with them. It wasn’t his fault they died, wasn’t his fault he had these dreams.

"He fell into a gorge a few days ago. He was carrying his baby, they both died.” Peter continued. Roman’s foot on the pedal pressed down harder and he ground his teeth together, he didn’t need to hear this shit. Peter lunged ahead to move in front of the car and Roman had to slow down or kill him. Peter was watching him through the windshield, his blue eyes fixed on him. “They both died after we dreamed it." he said, low and dark, guilt and anger and a little bit of wonder in his voice.

Roman sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose he closed his eyes against the other man. "Look,” he said, almost begging. “I’ve got my own shit to deal with-”

“If you don’t give a shit, then why are you here?" Peter pressed, moving away from the hood of the car and back towards the window. Roman imagined he could smell sandalwood, road dust, blood and the wolf under his skin. He felt his face contort in a sneer.

"Look, I have some fucked up nightmare about something really bad happening near mobile homes and railway tracks.” he looked at the other man, “Next thing I know, I'm on the road. Why? I couldn’t tell ya. I just want this shit out of my head.” he said in a rush, his fingers touching on his temple briefly before returning to the wheel.

“You didn’t dream about the sign?” Peter asked, surprised.

“What sign?” Roman asked through gritted teeth, annoyed with himself for not driving on like he wanted to.

“Gone sis.” Peter’s eyes were wide when Roman could only look blankly at him.

“How about,” he offered with insincere sweetness, “when I get home I'll send you my copy of _The Interpretation of Dreams_.”

“I just don’t feel right about running off and abandoning these people.” Peter said, ignoring him.

“But you’re so good at it.” Roman snarled. Peter’s jaw jumped and he stood up straight, looking down at Roman like he was a particularly ugly child.

“Have you ever done anything for somebody else?” he asked, low.

Roman let out a sound of disgust and lowered his foot on the gas, shaking his head and gritting his teeth against the slew of hateful things he wanted to unleash on the other man who just kept poking at scabs he knew would make Roman bleed while glossing over his own cruelties so easily. Outside his window, Peter continued, struggling to keep up with the car.

“You know you’re not the only one who lost someone. I was ready to move in! Get a job, raise her baby!”

Roman sped down the dirt road, hands clenched around the steering wheel and his chest so tight he thought his ribs would shatter under the strain. His breathing was coming fast and he knew if he lifted his hands from the wheel, they’d be shaking.

He knew Peter had loved Letha, the knowledge had cut deep and had pulled Roman so deep into his own head he hadn’t woken for two weeks. It had hurt, that knowledge. That the cousin he adored and his newest and closest friend were leaving his behind, no longer needing him. Peter believed he would have stayed, and he would have. But it would have killed him inside, not right away, not when Nadia was still young and he and Letha were making it work. But years down the line, when mortgages and work and the routine day to day stuff of a normal life had become real, he would struggle to stay. Chafing at the routine and stagnating in the small town. His gypsy blood would call him ever onwards, pulling him towards the next thing around the corner he needed to see.

He would have stayed, because he loved Letha and would have loved Nadia, but he wouldn’t have been the Peter that made the decision to stay.

It might have been drugs, might have been drink, might have been the wolf, Roman doubted it would be other women, but Peter would have found some crutch to hold him up, to cling to as he surrendered his heritage and who he really was to stay at home and be what Letha needed. It would have killed her to see it, because she would have seen it, would have known how much it hurt Peter to become this other thing, but she could never have become a gypsy wife, could never have taken to the road.

 

Roman stared up at his house for a long time before exiting the car and going inside.

Before returning to his bed, though he’d only get a couple of hours before he had to be up and get ready for work, he slipped into his daughter’s room and looked down at her face as she slept peacefully in her crib.

He didn’t know how he felt about Peter raising his daughter. Didn’t know how he should feel about it. Brushing a finger lightly across her soft, round cheek, Roman studied her in the dim shadows for a while longer before leaving the room and falling into his own bed.

 

The next morning, he read the news report of the murder-suicide in the trailer park as the head of the advertising department talked about the latest campaign.

Roman stared down at his phone. The coffee he’d just drunk turning sour in his stomach. Lifting a hand to his mouth, he breathed a curse into his skin and swallowed the furious tirade that wanted to follow it out.

 

Impotent anger and frustration gnawed at him for the rest of the day. It clung to him as he slept, blessedly without dreams, and was there when he woke up. It was a furious, mindless anger which had no real focus besides the dreams.

With his frustration, came the thirst. He wanted to rip someone’s throat out and feel their blood slip down his throat and feel it smear across his skin as he bathed in it. He wanted to gorge himself and fuck into a twitching, dying body as he drank deep, until he couldn’t drink anymore.

Before Pryce shared the drink with him, in the chaotic days after he killed his mom and lost Letha and Peter, Roman had felt consumed by this new, raw thirst which had been awoken in him.

Blood had always called to him, a thrill to see it, a blow to taste it. It got him off faster and harder than anything else, but until those desperate weeks before Pryce’s drink, Roman had never fully understood what _want_ really was. He’d thought he knew craving, the drag in his throat for a cigarette, the prickle in his skin for a line of coke, but that was nothing to his new want which had been awoken in him by his mother. It possessed him. Hot, wet, sticky blood was like fireworks in his bloodstream, like fucking and being fucked while on the purest, gum-numbing coke, washed down by a hundred-dollar bottle of scotch. He resisted, he tried so goddamn hard and thought he’d lose his mind as well as his humanity, but he’d resisted.

This new, directionless anger that came on the coattails of acknowledging the deaths which came with their dreams, set his teeth on edge with thirst. At least he knew how to alleviate thirst, there was nothing he could do about the dreams.

 

When his skin began to crawl with it, he drove to the bar in town and drank mediocre whiskey and waited for a girl to find him and try her luck. He wasn’t feeling picky, just wanted something to scratch the itch under his skin and sex had always done that well enough.

The girl that finally tried her luck was older, a college girl with an engagement ring on her finger and a dress a size too small. She smiled with glossy lips and let him lead her out the back door into the lane behind the bar. This wasn’t glamorous, this wasn’t an illicit affair for her to tell her closest friend about when she was drunk on champagne at her bachelorette party. This was fucking a stranger in a lane to try and alleviate a demon that wouldn't let you go.

Roman didn’t care what her story was or why she’d approached him. In the shadows of the lane he held her face in his hands and kissed her deep and slow. She melted against him, clutching at the lapels of his jacket and begging with her whole being to be possessed.

She sunk to her knees with little prompting and Roman leant back against the wall and closed his eyes as she got to work. She was sloppy but eager. Once she got him out of his pants she worked him confidently with her hand, shooting him a smoky eyed look before wrapping her mouth around him.

Sex was familiar. It was like the quenching of a thirst and the scratching of an itch. He listened to her slurp and felt her clever mouth work across his sensitive skin, hands working the base and balls. It was very nearly enough. For the time being, as the mouth worked him to completion, nothing else mattered.

The scrape of a shoe against pavement was like a whisper in the dark. Roman opened his eyes and looked, unerringly, towards the cause of the noise. Perhaps he should have been surprised to see the messy hair of Peter and his wide blue eyes at the mouth of the lane, but Roman couldn’t say he was. He hadn’t known he was there, hadn’t felt him approach or anything like that. But somehow, it could only ever be Peter that found him like this.

The girl on her knees in front of him hadn’t heard anything. Her rhythm hadn’t faltered and she continued to bob her head energetically, her bleached blond hair shining in the dim light.

At the mouth of the lane, Peter lifted a cigarette to his lips and took a drag, the end glowing cherry red in the dark before he pulled it from between his lips. When he exhaled, the smoke curled up around him, catching in the light and hovering above his head like a halo. He never took his eyes off Roman.

This thing between them was more real than werewolves and upirs, of gypsies and vargulfs. It was almost tangible and had been since the day they met. The tug of war between them, dancing around it and never giving it a name was familiar and agonising in equal measures.

Before Peter, Roman had never wanted a man. Women more than satisfied him and he enjoyed sex with them. At first, Roman hadn’t even realised what he wanted from Peter _was_ sexual, but he couldn’t deny it now. He didn’t think he was deluding himself by thinking the other man wanted him too. It wasn’t that they’d awoken the repressed gay within each other -Roman doubted Peter would ever have looked at a guy the way he looked at Roman, and Roman might have gotten bored enough to try eventually. But they both still liked women, they were both, young, red blooded, heterosexual males. It was just, sometimes they looked at each other and it was so much more than that.

Back in their senior year, Roman had thought perhaps he was put off from acting by the guy thing. It had seemed such a mundane thing to be put off by. To hesitate from touching because of some societal indoctrination he hadn't been aware of before.

He'd fucked a boy in his biology class who was shy, smart and lonely, just to prove he could. He’d made him forget it afterwards, but it had answered some of the questions he’d had about himself.

Roman could feel Peter’s eyes on him as the girl worked his dick energetically. He wondered what the gypsy was thinking, but pleasure was fogging up his brain and he couldn’t even play pretend and imagine a hundred lewd thoughts that might tumble through Peter’s mind.

Lifting a hand to his mouth, Roman sucked his thumb in between his lips and closed his eyes as his pleasure peaked. He bit down hard on the soft pad of his thumb and felt his teeth split the skin as blood welled up. His own blood was never as good as someone else, but it did the job, the metallic tang coated his tongue and he sucked deeply, feeling the rush of pleasure drag him under as his climax rushed out of him, stopping his breath and sending electricity through his body.

His head lolled back against the brick wall and his thumb slipped from between his lips as he gave himself over to the pleasure. Panting, he opened his eyes and looked towards the mouth of the lane. Peter released a breath of smoke before dropping the filter to the ground and grinding it out under his boot. They looked at each other for an endless moment, like they always had, amidst chaos and blood, chasing monsters and rebelling against their families. In that moment, they were as they always had been, when they were just two guys skipping school and pretending nothing could ever go wrong. It almost felt like the year between then and now disappeared, that all that grief, loneliness and heartache could be forgiven.

The girl at his feet said something, voice high and wavering. Roman looked down at her as he tucked himself back into his pants. When he looked back towards the mouth of the lane, Peter was gone.

That year would never be so easily forgotten, even if they could become friends again, if Peter grovelled enough and crawled on his belly over broken glass, it would always be there, a hurt Roman would never truly forgive.

Pushing away from the wall, Roman stepped around the girl and made his way out of the lane, refusing to look around for the figure he wouldn’t see and ignoring the offended cry of the girl behind him.

 

When he got home that night and crawled into his large, empty bed, he dreamt of cool shadows and a quiet room, the feel of another person in his bed and the touch of skin from shoulder to fingertip. It was a deep, restful sleep and when he woke to the shadows of dawn he felt tears of frustration and anger prickle behind his eyes as he lay in the afterglow as though it was a punishment until he heard Nadia through the baby monitor and he had to get up to see if Anna was seeing to her.

 

The dreams were more insistent. One of the other was coming every night now, when before, he’d had nights of reprieve between them. He didn’t know if it was the fact that Peter was closer and maybe the signal or whatever was better now, or whether the thing that was doing this was getting stronger or impatient or _something._

The images of the latest dream lingered in his mind after he woke up, just like all the others before it had.

Roman stared up at the shadows that painted themselves over the ceiling as night shifted towards day. It was an unsettling image he was left with: a boy on a tricycle, the hood of his jacket flapping behind him. It was an image of idyllic childhood, something hundreds of children had done before and would do again.

It was disturbing to see it through the eyes of a killer. To see it as an opportunity.

Through the monitor, he kept beside the bed, he heard Nadia wake with a grumble which immediately transforms into a wail. Pulling himself out of bed, he made his way into her room. She was standing up in her crib, her face red as she screamed her unhappiness, looking at him with accusing blue eyes. Roman doubted he would ever get used the sound of her crying, it sent his nerves into a frenzy and his blood pounding with the need to fix it, though he had no idea what he could possibly do to help her.

Abruptly, she stopped crying. Her impossibly wide eyes left him and turned towards the door to her room and she cocked her head a little as she studied the doorway.

A second later the buzzer to the front door went off. Roman looked from the door to his daughter and felt a chill run down his spine. Nadia burbled happily, her eyes roving between the door and Roman.

Glancing at the security monitor as he passed, the uneasy chill lingered when he recognised the scruffy, bowed head of Peter on his doorstep.

Roman had been an unremarkable child, Anna said he’d cried a lot, never satisfied and hadn’t liked anyone but his sister and cousin, but he’d never displayed unusual behaviour until he was in his teens and his upir heritage had started to show. Though he hadn’t known what it was at the time, it had still affected him in more ways than just the bloodlust.

Once he’d been assured that Nadia wasn’t developing at a freakish rate, he’d assumed she was a perfectly normal baby and she hadn’t done anything to make him question it.

She cried, like he had, but besides a vague worry that he knew exactly what would satisfy her hunger, he had never had to worry about her, assured by Anna’s experience.

As he looked at the blurred shadow of Peter on the other side of the door, the abrupt ceasing of Nadia’s crying rang in his ears. He wished, for the first time in his life, that Olivia had been a better mother. She knew what was going on with him and his daughter, knew better than them what they were. If she’d been a better mom and was here to guide him he wouldn’t have to worry that there was something more going on that he couldn’t grasp. She’d know if it was just coincidence that silenced Nadia at the arrival of a werewolf. Some part of him couldn’t bear the thought that, like him, Nadia was in some way linked with a gypsy that would never stay.

Sucking in a breath, he cracked open the door and looked at the gypsy on his doorstep in the bright morning light.

Peter began talking the moment Roman opened the door, like he was expecting it to be slammed in his face and he only had seconds to voice his case,

“The white masks from the dreams, I think he killed the family, and the woman and the kid at the trailer park.” he said in a rush. Roman leant against the door.

“So you’re saying some psycho in a mask is going around killing people?” he asked dryly. Peter met his eyes and there was something alight in them, the fire of understanding making him shake in the morning air like a junkie.

“Yeah, but he's making them look like accidents.” he said, voices almost hushed.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Peter snapped, bowing his head and running his fingers through his dark hair, “that's why I'm standing in the last place either of us want me to be right now.” he looked back up at Roman and the upir held himself unmoved. “The boy on the tricycle was looking up at something, if we can just figure out what that was-”

“What do you want?” Roman cut him off, visions from the dream floating back up as he shoved them forcibly away. Peter swallowed, seemingly unsure how to continue. Eventually he came to a decision. A muscle in his jaw twitched and he hitched a breath before speaking.

“All of senior year, Destiny kept telling me to pay attention to the dreams and I didn't. That’s why everything went bad.” the last words were torn out of him, guilt and horror like razors across the words.

“Well if you're trying to make up for skipping out on me like a coward, then duly noted.” Roman said, holding on to the betrayal like Nadia with a toy she refused to give up. It was the lingering fear over Nadia silencing at Peter’s arrival which didn’t let him soften. No good would come from accepting a gypsy back into their lives. He wouldn’t do that to his daughter and he couldn't do it to himself.

“I was a coward.” Peter said, a confession Roman didn’t want to hear, even as every wounded part of him longed for it. “You were my only friend and I shouldn’t have abandoned you. I'm sorry.” Peter continued, eyes glittering with grief through his dark strands of hair.

He didn't wait for a response, just turned away and slinked away.

“Peter,” Roman called before he could stop himself, “the thing the kid was looking at was a plane. An old fashioned bi-plane or whatever, flying low, pulling a green banner.” the words poured out of him in a rush, “Good luck.” he said before Peter could reply and retreated into the house, closing the door behind him.

He stood for a minute, just inside the door, looking around at his house. Upstairs, Anna would be feeding Nadia before her morning bath, his daughter writhing and complaining the whole time.

He imagined letting the gypsy in, having his scuffed boots up on Romans coffee table, or feeding his daughter with a care you wouldn't expect from him. Roman tried to imagine letting Peter back in, allowing him into his home and his life and waiting for the day he packs up and leaves, called back to his family and the constant, endless travel they were ruled by.

He wondered how many times he’d welcome him back just to watch him leave again. If Peter would make a special trip for Nadia’s milestones in life, flying visits just long enough to hurt the lot of them before leaving again.

And maybe he’d leave completely, disgusted and appalled when he found out what Roman was, what he thought Nadia might become. The legacy Olivia had left them both.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. It’d be Patrick calling about something or other at the tower that he knew Roman would want to know about. Rubbing tiredly at his eyes Roman made his way back upstairs to prepare for the day, pushing the early morning visit aside.

 

There was no report of a hit and run or a child killed on his tricycle that day or the next, or the one after. Roman checked hourly, a quick scroll through the news sites in a way which made the department heads nervous, no doubt imagining some scandal or controversy about Roman or Godfrey Industries to hit the headlines and make stock values plummet.

When no news was forthcoming he allowed himself to hope that maybe Peter had succeeded and he’d beaten the white masked man. The hope bubbled in his chest but he refused to acknowledge it. This wasn’t his problem, if Peter wanted to go hunting monsters and saving lives that was his business, Roman had a company to run and a daughter to raise, he wouldn’t find his absolution through playing knights.

The exhausted, defeated Peter who stood on his doorstep when he answered the doorbell that afternoon was such a striking change to the one who had come to Roman with the revelation and the bright hope of stopping what was coming that Roman invited him inside before he’d thought about it.

“Kids dead.” Peter said in a low, gravelly voice. “I stopped the car crash, told the mom to get the hell out of town and hide,” he laughed a shallow, bitter laugh, “got arrested for my efforts.”

“She didn’t listen?” Roman asked softly. Peter shot him a wounded look.

“She listened.” shrugging he let out a laugh, “That’s why they released me, no complainant.”

“Then how…?” Roman asked gently.

“Apparently she drowned her kid in the bath. Got to her sister’s in Vancouver. But the man in the mask must have followed.”

“Jesus.” Roman breathed. Peters bowed head nodded.

Silence stretched between them, seeming to fill the large open area of the house. They both shifted, opening their mouths to speak at the same time when a door upstairs opened and Anna emerged with a wailing Nadia.

Roman held still, as though if he pretended he hadn’t heard it he could convince Peter he’d imagined it. It was a wild, childish reaction that failed before it had even formed in his subconscious.

Peter’s head shot up and he stared, wide eyed, at Anna’s panicked face. In the seconds which followed, when Peter's face slipped from confused to surprise to curious before finally slipping over to realisation, Roman imagined a hundred ways to escape the situation.

“It’s okay Anna, bring her down.” Roman rasped, still not looking up at the balcony above. Anna hesitated before making her way down the stairs in her usual brisk efficiency.

“Is that…?” Peter asked breathlessly. Roman nodded, averting his gaze.

“When were you gonna tell me?” Peter asked, before immediately moving to meet the nurse and take Nadia from her arms. “What’s her name?” he asked, then again when Roman didn’t answer fast enough.

“Nadia.” Roman said, and it felt like a gasp.

Peter adjusted his hold on the bundle in his arms who settled down immediately and stared up at the gypsy with bright, curious eyes.

“Hello Nadia,” Peter said to her in a low, soft voice as he instinctively rocked her gently.

Watching the other man with his daughter, Roman found himself jealous of how easily Peter touched. He cradled Roman’s daughter to his arms within seconds of seeing her, he held her with infinite care and no sign of fear.

Fear is all Roman felt when he looked at Nadia sometimes.

Maybe it was how Peter was raised, gypsies living in close quarters. He, his cousin and mom had always touched, sitting on top of each other on the couch and reaching out to each other for comfort without a second thought.

Roman thought of his own upbringing, after his dad died, a distant, cold mother who spoke in riddles, threats and half-truths. And Shelley, beautiful, kind, sweet Shelley his only companion for so many of those lonely years, but she was scared to touch sometimes too, scared of her own strength and her body's betrayal.

“I loved your mother, you know.” Peter told Nadia, voice soft. Roman felt his throat tighten and he had to look away from the pair. He heard Anna murmur something and then the rustle of fabric. Glancing back he saw Anna waiting patiently with her arms out as Peter pressed a kiss to Nadia’s forehead.

“See you soon Nadia, okay?" he promised her before passing her to the old woman.

Roman watched Peter who stared after Anna and Nadia as they disappeared back up the stairs and into the bathroom. In the silence that followed, Roman sunk down onto the couch and rubbed at his face. After a moment, Peter followed, perching himself on the large footstool so he could study Roman.

“I wanted to tell you,” Roman confessed before the other man could say anything, “but you split and I didn’t know what to do, I needed you and you left me.” swallowing back the pain of those weeks, he pushed on, “I was completely fucking lost.” he admitted before meeting Peter’s gaze “I am completely fucking lost.” he choked on a laugh and swallowed a sob that wanted to escape. It was a relief, really, to talk about it. For the last year, he’d only had Pryce to talk to about any of this and on the best days Roman wasn’t entirely sure Pryce cared about anything but his experiments. Anna did her job but she was old school to the extreme, the staff below stairs had no place lecturing or instructing the families they were hired to look after.

“I don’t understand,” Peter finally said, breaking the silence. “were you planning on hiding this baby forever?”

“I didn’t have a plan, I still don’t.”

Peter rose from the footrest and lowered himself onto the couch beside Roman. When he slipped an arm across Roman’s shoulder and pulled him into his side, Roman thought about resisting, not allowing himself to accept the comfort the other man was offering him. But with a sigh he squeezed his eye shut and let himself be maneuverer into an awkward semi-hug as they leant against each other, their bowed heads touching as they held each other up.

Roman let out a shuddering breath and let himself be comforted. It had been so long since he’d touched someone like this, since someone had cared enough to hold him and not ask for anything in return. For the last year he’s had to be so strong and so cold, never letting anyone close and scared to death of this new thirst within him. He had survived because he had to, because he was the only one left and someone had to.

Reluctantly, Roman pulled away from the hug he wanted to melt into. Clearing his throat, he brushed his hair back from his face and stood up.

“You want a drink?” he asked, already moving towards the kitchen. Behind him, Peter stood up and followed him, when he glanced back, Roman saw him rubbing his palms down his jeans and scratching at his beard as he too cleared his throat.

“Sure.” he accepted and trailed after the taller man.

Roman paused at the fridge door and thought about his thirst. He’d drunk when he got home from work, but with Nadia exposed and Peter beside him his nerves felt raw, and with that feeling came the prickle of thirst he knew would open-up like a chasm and threaten to swallow him whole if he didn’t keep on top of it.

He took the whiskey from the cabinet over the sink and two glasses instead. Pouring them each a generous helping he leant back against the counter behind him and studied Peter who had perched himself on a stool and was looking down at his bottle.

“When did...” Peter paused, looking uncomfortable. “You’re upir now.” he said instead.

Roman felt the whiskey turn to ice in his veins and his shoulders tensed.

“You knew?” He didn’t realise he’d spoken until Peter flinched “Why the hell didn’t you say anything, why didn’t you tell me?”  Roman held himself back from shouting, shock and betrayal warred with an incredulous twist of hope.

“At first I didn’t know if you even knew, and then it was obvious you didn’t and how the hell was I going to tell you something like that?”

“I’ve watched you change into a wolf, Peter. There was a good fucking chance I would listen to you about this supernatural shit.” Romans voice rose to a shout and he breathed in deeply and slowly to try and quiet himself.

“It’s not the way of the romani to interfere with upir.” Peter said like it was a saying drilled into him from his childhood, and maybe it was, but that hadn’t mattered when Peter let him watch him change and they’d started this co-dependent friendship which had left some dead and had almost ruined Roman.

“So instead you let my psycho mom force me into the change.” Roman said lowly, “I nearly lost my fucking mind, I could have killed someone.”

“But you haven’t?” Peter asked, suddenly alight, looking at Roman properly for the first time since Roman had pulled himself from his hold.

“No thanks to you.” Roman snarled.

A pregnant silence settled between them. After a few deep sips of his drink Peter rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and let out a groan.

“I’m sorry.” he said, and sounded like it. Roman wondered how many times he could hear the other man apologise before he stopped feeling anything at the words. “I should have said something, Destiny thought it was best if I didn’t.” He met Romans angry expression head on. Roman knew how Peter trusted Destiny’s guidance, he was inclined to trust it himself. She was a lot of things, not many of them favourable, but there was something about her when she knew something, when her name seemed like more than a gypsy gimmick. Roman jerked his head in a nod, which Peter returned. It wasn’t forgiveness, but an understanding was reached. Another betrayal that would never really be settled but they’d move beyond it just the same.

“How do you survive if you don’t…” Peter made a gesture with his hand Roman didn’t really want to identify.

“Godfrey Industries has a few projects of particular interest.” he said dryly.

 

Peter stayed until a phone call from Destiny near midnight called him away.

The hours slipped away before they even realised it. After Nadia’s bath, they went up to her room and Peter played with her as Roman watched from the doorway.

Peter was good with her, when Roman asked, he said he had a lot of cousins and had spent a lot of his time keeping an eye on them.  Roman wondered, not for the first time, what growing up like Peter would be like, full of people and children and easy touches.

When she was put to bed, they ordered take out and talked as they ate on the couch. It was familiar and comforting though they’d never had an evening quite like this.

When Peter hung up the phone he looked towards Roman and seemed reluctant to leave. But he did, pulling on his jacket as Roman walked him towards the door. They stood looking at each other for a moment on either side of the threshold. It seemed like they were in the middle of something, though neither of them could say exactly where they’d come from and where they were going.

“We need to do something about the dreams.” Peter said, picking up the thread of conversation they'd left hours earlier. Roman nodded.

“We’re having these dreams for a reason.” Peter said. When Roman looked up at him, he was studying Roman intently, something in his gaze which was strangely reminiscent of the wolf. He opened his mouth to say something else but closed it when his phone buzzed and he glanced at it.

Letting out a breath as he shoved it back into his pocket hr paused for just a second before reached forward. Roman jerked with surprise when he was pulled into a loose hug as Peter knocked his head against Roman’s like a cat nuzzling.

He almost missed it when Peter murmured as he pressed a kiss against his hair. “O chavorro na biandola dandencar.” pulling back, he clapped a hand on Roman’s shoulder. “I'll see you soon.” like a promise.

His eyes drifted behind Roman and up towards where he knew Nadia was sleeping.

Roman nodded which Peter returned jerkily before turning and disappearing into the darkness towards his truck.

Roman watched him go and kept looking long after the headlights had disappeared.  

 

Nadia stirred when he looked in on her on his way to bed. Turning her big eyes towards him she looked up at him for a moment before scrunching her face up and starting to wail.

Instinctively, Roman crossed to her crib and looked down at her. Peter had reached out for her so easily, cradling her to him when she got fussy and soothing her with a hand on her back when she complained.

Reaching down into the crib Roman lifted his daughter into his arms. She let out a gurgle of surprise and snuffled into his chest, her crying stopping as though she’d forgotten what had upset her. She nuzzled against him, her small hand fisting in the fabric of his top, Roman smiled down at her, shifting her in his arms so they were both comfortable and gently rocked as she drifted off in his arms.

He hadn’t realised how good it would feel to hold his daughter, to press his face into her soft hair and smell the clean, fresh scent of her. Her weight was reassuring in his arms and for the first time he felt like she belonged there, like he had a purpose in this child’s life. He couldn’t help the guilt that he’d missed so much time doing this. He’d never really thought he was a coward before, but pressing a kiss against her soft hair he acknowledged that that was exactly what he was.

 

The dreams persisted, vague and obtuse. In some dreams, Roman felt his bones crack and tasted blood. He felt pursued, a wolf shadowing his steps as much as the white masks which slipped out of vision, disappearing out of the corner of his eye.  It felt like a seizure, like ice boiling and being fucked open past tolerance.

 

He found a reprieve of sorts with his daughter, spending the time between the dreams and work with her in his arms, or playing on the ground beside her. Anna adjusted to the shift in routine seamlessly, though she watched him with sharp eyes that held questions he didn't want to hear.

He also spent more time with Peter, both with Nadia and without. When he watched his daughter and Peter play on the floor, or when the gypsy read to her on Roman’s favourite spot on the couch, he wondered if Peter had found a similar soothing influence in the toddler.  

It wasn’t obvious, not really, but Peter was getting edgy, short tempered and angrier than Roman had ever seen the other man. He thought perhaps something had happened in the year he’d been away, but for some reason he didn’t think that was it. The wolf was close to the surface, Roman could see it, prowling just under Peter’s skin.

As he watched, he wondered if Peter had gone against the moon again, or if this was all because of the one time he had, the time with Christina.

The Peter that walked out of that church, wasn’t the one that had walked in.

Sometimes, when Roman was caught looking, he could see the wolf just behind those blue eyes and he found himself wondering what that was like, if it was like the thirst he himself struggled with. But thirst was a craving, a hunger, the wolf was a creature which hunted and tracked and breathed.

They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk about a lot of things. Their friendship wasn’t quite like the one they’d had in their senior year, they could never go back to that, but it was something else. The hundred little things they didn’t discuss, like the way touches lingered sometimes or the way they’d catch each other looking sometimes and instead of looking away, they met that gaze like a dare, every time. They didn’t talk about the dreams they shared which had nothing to do with death and children and white masks.  

Instead, they fell into a stalemate, some unnamed and unknown entity between them which locked them in this limbo world where they were more than friends but less than more. All the possibilities that stood before them were just out of reach.

 

They were at a bar this time, both too edgy to be around Nadia and too restless to stay at Roman’s. The bustle of the crowd was a good distraction and a good excuse to stand just a little too close as they nursed their drinks.

“Destiny keeps telling me to ignore the dreams, to forget about them, bury them deep.” Peter said over the noise of the crowd, looking up from the glass of whiskey Roman was keeping topped up along with his own.

Roman looked across at him. He knew Peter had been seeking Destiny’s advice on the dreams, trying to find some clue on where to look or why the hell they were having them, but he’d assumed they hadn’t found anything, not that Destiny was resisting.

“Why?” he asked. Peter shrugged one shoulder and downed his glass, nodding his thanks when it was refilled upon hitting the bar top.

“Say’s it’s bad business. Something really bad.” he swallowed and Roman watched his throat bob, “She tried to look and it almost killed her.”

“What?”

“It was sick man, this black stuff just started pouring out of her mouth and she started seizing. Fuck, it was scary.” He looked at Roman with wide eyes and when Roman instinctively reached over and put his hand over Peter’s on the bar top, Peter squeezed his fingers in return and didn’t immediately let him go.

“Shit.” Roman said succinctly, for something to say. Peter nodded.

 

They stayed at the bar late, sharing a bottle of whiskey and getting looser and more relaxed as the hours slipped past. The bar was filled with the Friday night crowd and the two of them leant against the bar and watched the people that circled around each other, on the prowl and out to party.

There was a group of girls to their left, talking loud and posing as much as drinking. They’d caught the eye of a couple of college guys and Roman watched as the boys egged each other on to make a move on. Glancing at Peter he saw the other man was also watching the mating game, he looked at Roman in time for them to share an amused look just before one of the college kids made his approach. They were too far away to hear the line he used but it looked like it worked well enough.

Turning fully to face Peter, Roman found the other man’s attention had wandered from the group to a pretty girl with dark blonde hair who had stepped up to the bar a few places along.

Roman watched the other man look, his eyes were hazy with the whiskey they’d been drinking and it had relaxed the hunched hold of his shoulders to a slouch which looked almost predatory. Roman wondered if that was the wolf in him, the gypsy had always had more of an awareness of his body than most kids his age, but it was more pronounced now.

Peter’s smile shifted and Roman flicked a look towards the girl who had noticed Peter’s attention. The girl’s eyes drifted from Peter to Roman and back again, the look lingered for a moment before she apparently came to a decision and her smile shifted, becoming warmer and more welcoming, flirty. She lifted the drink the barman handed her to her lips and took a sip, keeping her eyes on them.

Roman glanced at Peter to see what he thought about the looks shot between the two of them. The gypsy didn’t seem to think anything of it, though he shifted closer to Roman as the girl made up her mind and pushed off the bar with a sway of her hips and approached them.

Peter was smooth with girls. Different to Roman who dazzled them, disorientated and charmed if he wanted to. Women liked him because they liked the way his expensive clothes looked, liked the confidence he carried himself with and could sense the possibility of danger on him.

Peter was different, he was gypsy charm, something a little bit wild and exotic, with smooth words and clever stories. Gypsy’s were famously silver tongued, tricksters and seducers and Peter could turn it on like a switch. He smiled and it looked like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth even as the curl to his lips promised something wicked.

Roman watched them flirt. It made his hackles rise to think of them going off and hooking up, leaving Roman to go home to his big home all alone and no doubt dream something fucked up, but he wouldn’t say anything, that wasn’t his role. The girl flashed her eyes at him and Roman cocked his head, curious. The girl had made no secret that she was into Peter, her long fingers stroked his arm and she smiled as she looked up at him through her lashes. But the way she looked at Roman every now and again made him wonder exactly what she was interested in.

Roman sipped his drink and let his gaze linger on the girl. She was hot, athletic, sultry eyes with a mouth that looked like it knew what to do. When she excused herself to go to the restroom, Roman watched her weave her way through the crowd knowing there was more than one pair of eyes following her. When she vanished from sight, he turned to Peter who was already looking at him.

His eyes were sharper than they should be with the amount of liquor he’d drunk. Peter drained the rest of his drink and deposited the glass on the bar top without looking. “She’s into you.” Peter said, flicking a look over him.

Roman lifted his eyebrows. “if she got any closer to you, she’d be in your lap.”

Peter glanced away and Roman could see him biting his inner cheek. He studied Peter’s profile as he looked into the crowd towards where the girl had gone. When Peter looked back at him, he met Roman’s eyes and they were steady and focused, unwavering. Roman remembered those eyes on him across a laneway, watching as some girl sucked him off.

He pulled in a breath, deep, filling his lungs which were suddenly tight like he’d forgotten to breath. Peter’s eyes roved over his face as his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. Roman jerked his head in a nod and after a beat, Peter returned it.

The girl returned and Roman turned and nodded for another refill from the barman, suddenly feeling too sober.

It was the girl who finally dived into what they all knew they were circling. Standing on her toes she kissed Peter, letting him lick into her mouth as one hand threaded into his hair and her other hand reached out and trailed across Roman’s shirt. pulling away from Peter’s mouth, she licked her lips before leaning up to Roman invitingly. Roman flicked a quick look towards Peter and met his steady eyes for a second before swooping down and taking her mouth, chasing the taste of the gypsy on her lips.

 

Peter and Roman went in Roman’s car back to his place, the girl followed close behind in her own. Roman caught occasional glimpses of her face when he looked in the rear-view mirror. She was talking on the phone, laughing as she gesticulated along with whatever she was saying as she drove.

Beside him, Peter was smoking and watching Roman drive. Without a word, Peter handed the cigarette over and Roman took the offering willingly. It was something they’d done what felt like a hundred times before, he sucked the smoke in deep and held it as he passed the cigarette back, angling the smoke out the open window as he drummed his fingers along the steering wheel.

“Are we seriously doing this?” Peter asked around the filter. Roman shot him a look but returned his eyes to the road ahead as the turn off to his house loomed in front of them.

“Looks like it. Can back out.” he rasped. Peter exhaled loudly and cleared his throat.

“I’m game.” Peter said. Roman shot a look at him as he flicked the indicator to turn into the property.

“Me too.”

They waited at the door, finishing the cigarette between them in the cold night air as they watched her small red car pull up behind Romans. Climbing out of her car, she approached the house with a swing in her step, but when she smiled, she showed the first hint of nerves that night. With that vulnerability revealed, Roman felt a flare of power race through his veins like the first mouthful of blood hitting his system.

When she got close enough, Roman pulled her towards him and licked into her mouth, opening her up to the kiss. She tasted like cherry liqueur and shivered with the cold and a hot flush of arousal. Pulling back, he nudged her towards Peter as he turned to unlock the door and open it for them. She went willingly, giggling into the cold air and stepping backwards like they were dancing when Peter guided he into the house.

The three of them stumbled up the stairs in the dark, Peter and Roman moved as one, like they always had, communicating without words and moving the girl up the stairs and into the house like it was a dance they’d done before. Their jackets were discarded on the stairs, and the girl worked, hands tangled with Peter’s to free him of his vest and shirts, layers of clothes shedding as they made it into Roman’s room, where Roman peeled the girl’s dress from her as Peter lifted his final t-shirt over his head, showing the flex of his abdomen and a shake of his dark hair as he freed his head. The girl pressed close to the shorter man, her body against his as Peter’s clever hands released the clap of her bra.

Roman watched them together as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, fingers working as he studied them. They looked good together, Peter wore nudity like some people wore tailored suits, confident, comfortable. Roman remembered the first time he’d seen it, lit by the setting sun, bold and unashamed, the nervous energy of earlier replaced with a predatory fluidity.

Peter looked at him from over the girl’s shoulder, and Roman felt it like a physical thing as he peeled the panels of his shirt back, undoing the buttons of his wrist and curving his neck to one side. He wondered if the wolf in the other man liked that, liked Roman baring his throat for him. The thought that maybe it did sent a thrill through him and he licked his lips as he looked back at Peter through his lashes.

The girl had gotten Peters belt and pants undone and he lowered himself to the edge of Roman’s bed to undo the laces of his boots. Roman pulled the girl to him and she came willingly, letting out a breathless laugh as he bent to kiss her, cradling her face in his hands.

Boots and socks discarded, Peter leaned back on his palms, his fingers tracing over the fabric in an unconscious gesture, feeling the high thread count as his eyes settled on the pair of them. Roman trailed kisses down her throat, moving her how he wanted and tasting the flush of blood just under her skin.

He could feel Peter’s eyes on them and he felt himself preen under the attention. Moving his hands to her hips, he spun the girl around to face the other man and returned his mouth to her neck. He watched Peter as his hands drifted, watched as the other man’s breath went hot and deep as Roman played with the girl.

They’d always watched each other, eyes lingering longer than other peoples, but this was different. As Roman displayed the girl, running his hands over her breasts and tweaking her nipples, before moving one hand lower, teasing all of them as he slipped his hand beneath the waistband of her underwear, he played Peter as much as he did the girl in his arms.

_Look at me. Look at what I can do. Look how clever I can be._

Roman had always liked being looked at. Didn’t matter what was behind the looks, it was a thrill to be seen. It’s why he’d chased after the boy who hadn’t fit into their small town high school, why he’d been bold and mean in public, too smart and too rich to fit in, always attracting looks, both good and bad.

Peter's gaze was hot, moving where Roman wanted him to look. The girl in his arms became a puppet, a doll between them for Roman to manipulate how he wanted to best tease the man in front of them.

Roman met Peter’s eyes and nodded him to move further up the bed. Peter scooted back against the headboard, following the wordless prompt like he and Roman had always communicated. Keeping his eyes on Peter, Roman lifted his mouth to the girl’s ear and spoke, low enough to send a shiver through her, but loud enough for Peter to hear.

“Suck him.” he commanded, a thread of steel through his voice. The girl shivered in his arms and Peter let out a breath.

Stepping back, he toed off his shoes and shrugging off his shirt and watched as she climbed onto the bed and approached Peter in a crawl, her body moving fluidly. She knew what she was doing, this wasn’t her first rodeo and she got off on being looked at as much as Roman did.

Peter lifting his hips and worked his jeans off as she approached, she helped him peel them from his ankles before insinuating herself between his legs. She made a show of it for both of them. She took Peter’s dick in her hand and stroked it, murmuring something hot and flirty about the size of it. Roman watched, mouth flooding with saliva as her small hand circled Peter’s dick. It was different, seeing it aroused. He’d been impressed enough in the moments before the change had torn his body apart, but that could have been just another dude checking out a guy, this was different, this made the air in his lungs hot as he pulled in a breath.

The girl’s spine arched downward in a dramatic arch as she pushed her hips up towards Roman and her head towards Peter’s dick. She’d be making a show of that too, of taking it into her mouth, still glossy from her lip gloss, big eyes hot as she looked up at him. Roman studied the pair for a moment as his hands lowered to his belt. It came undone with a clink of metal and he pulled it from the loops with the whisper of leather.

Peter was watching him, lounging back against the headboard he looked cocky. A girl’s head in his lap and his arms relaxed by his side, he reminded Roman of a king, one of those old warrior kings in the stories, controlling and powerful. The rings on his fingers gleamed in the half light and the necklaces resting against his chest made him seem exotic, outside the polished, tailored world Roman was a part of.  

His fingers had paused on the button of his pants and Peter nodded him on. It was surprisingly thrilling to be told what to do, even silently, it happened so rarely and Roman knew if anyone but Peter tried it, he’d bulk.

His pants and underwear slipped down his legs and he stood there, chin raised, naked and exposed. Peter’s eyes trailed over him, taking his time to examine him. Roman stood still under the appraisal, lips parting around his breaths which were pushed from tight lungs. When Peter shifted one hand into the girl’s hair and glanced down at her when she murmured something, Roman was released and he kicked his pants away from him and quickly removed his socks before joining the pair on the bed.

A shiver ran through the girl’s body when he touched her. Fingertips trailed down her sides as he lowered his mouth to her skin, tracing the curve of her spine and running his teeth across her soft skin. A flush rose to the surface at his ministrations and he smiled into her skin, alternating between gentle fingertips and nails, leaning back he admired his work. She moved into his touch, alternating between her mouth and her hand on Peter’s dick as she enjoyed the attention Roman was paying her.

Peter was also watching, eyes heavy lidded but with the focus of a laser on Roman’s progress. When Roman slipped one hand between her legs and pressed his fingers against her, she jerked before rolling her body back to him in a fluid movement. He played with her, testing her reactions as he explored her, always teasing, just to the side of her clit and never giving her quite enough. The tease made her body twitch with aborted movements, shivering when he almost gave her what she wants and tensing when he moved away. Peter watched as he played her like an instrument, a curl to his lips as he admired the tease. When he breathing went hot and frustrated, Roman grabbed each of her thighs with a hold that was a touch too tight and pulled them apart and towards him. She let out a noise as she fell against the bed, her hips held in position by Roman’s firm hold. Peter’s eyes jerked up to meet Roman’s and there was something electric in his gaze, a curl at the corners of his mouth which parted around an exhalation.

Roman held his gaze as he pushed into her in one smooth, relentless glide. Her body welcomed him, hot, wet and tight as she let out a moan from deep within her. Peter’s throat bobbed and his gaze roved over Roman as he began to fuck her. The feel of hot flesh under and around him wasn’t new, he’d fucked more girls than he cared to remember but he rarely felt on display like this.

He thrust into her, running his fingers over her body and grabbing her tight and moving her where he wanted her to go. Threading his fingers into her hair, he felt the movement of her head working as she sucked Peter enthusiastically, moaning around the flesh in her mouth. He pulled her head back, hand fisted in her hair, just because he could. She whined, high in her throat but went willingly with the hold. Releasing her, he ran his hands down her body and grabbed at her hips to hold her still as he adjusted his thrusts and fucked into her. She moaned, letting out high, cut off noises as her thrust.

Peter threaded his fingers into her hair and guided her head back down. Roman’s eyes were caught on the smooth, gentle control he wielded over her, different to Roman’s own which was always just on the edge of cruelty. She took Peter back into her mouth with a slurp that sent a shiver down Roman’s spine.

His eyes searched for Peter and found him already looking up at him. Roman grunted, fucking into her harder so she rocked forward, mouth sinking lower on Peter's dick. His fingers fisted in her hair as she gagged and pulled off with a slurp as she caught her breath before diving back down.

Roman let his eyes trail down the other man, taking in the long line of his throat, the shadows of his beard and the twist and coil of muscles down his neck, his shoulders, down his torso. Roman’s breath was hot in his lungs and his hips continued thrusting as he looked his fill, gorging himself on the sight of the other man. As his pleasure mounted his resistance melted away and he let himself give in.

He knew his eyes were hungry, new his mouth had fallen open as he panted and his desire was written across his face, but he couldn’t help it. He had no desire to pull himself back now that he’d let himself get so close to the very thing he’d wanted since he was seventeen.

It was so close, so agonisingly close but still not enough. Even so, it was better than the bright eyed, dark haired boys Roman had picked up when it got too bad, when his mouth was numb with coke and he couldn’t sleep for the fucking dreams of the other man beside him, and so he let himself stop fighting, just for a night the boys he picked up wouldn’t remember.

But it had never been like this, never been Peter’s eyes on him, Peter twisting and grunting under clever ministrations and the smell of Peter’s sweat in his nose, just a pale imitation before now.

The girl gagged again and Roman thought of pulling her off, of tossing her across the room and sinking into the space between Peter’s thighs and showing him what Roman had learned, showing him the girl between them was just taking up space.

A grunt was punched from his chest when a calloused hand gripped his face and pulled his eyes back up to Peter’s. A thumb ran across Roman’s bottom lip and he let his mouth fall open at the touch. His lids fluttered but he refused to close them when the thumb slipped into his mouth. Closing his lips around the digit, he hollowed his cheeks and sucked, tasting sweat and feeling callouses under his tongue.

“Oh, fuck.” Peter breathed and Roman hummed around the skin hollowing his cheeks again and looked at Peter through lowered lashes. His eyes were wide and his mouth had fallen open, a flush high on his cheeks and his dark hair was sticking to his skin in ringlets and dark waves. The fingers on Romans jaw pressed harder and he felt a coil of satisfaction thrum through him, from his busy mouth to his dick buried, in hot, wet heat.

A gasp of disappointment escaped him when the thumb was removed, but Peter was shoving two fingers between his lips before he could miss it. The stretch was bigger and he had to loosen his jaw to take them comfortably. He could feel the gypsy’s rings press against his lips and tasted the tang of metal when his tongue darted forward to touch them.

Against the headboard, Peter swore and thumped his head back against the wood, his eyes dark and glossy, trained on Roman’s mouth.

Roman made a show of it, slurping around the fingers and hollowing his cheeks as he worked them, showing Peter what he could do, making him imagine it was Roman with his lips around his dick, not an anonymous woman who had no idea what she was sharing a bed with.

Roman held his head still as Peter fucked his fingers into his mouth. He could feel his spit dribbling down his chin and he slurped around the intrusion in his mouth as he lost himself in the rhythm of his hips and Peter’s fingers in his mouth. It was heady, he felt like he’d moved beyond his body, living in the rocking waves of the bed.

Peter’s muscles in his abdomen and arms were twitching and he bared his teeth as his breaths became short and hard. Roman trained his eyes on him, hungry for what he knew was coming. Peter came with a growl, teeth bared and neck muscles straining, one hand in the girl’s hair and the other in Roman’s mouth.

Roman was reminded of the change, of something greater than the man tearing its way out of him, consuming him.

His own breaths were coming desperate and fast. Chasing the edge of completion which seemed to be slipping away from him even as he rushed towards it. He sucked harder on the fingers in his mouth and clutched the girl’s hips as his thrusts grew sloppy and erratic, desperate for release.

Peter licked his lips, still breathing hard as the girl pulled off him and started making high pitched, mewing noises as Roman fucked her. The sound grated on his nerves, forcing their way between him and his climax and he could feel frustration seeping into his veins. When Peter pulled his fingers from Romans mouth he couldn’t help but whine in desperation. When a single finger returned to his mouth he welcomed it, but longed for the stretch of more.

Roman didn’t realise what Peter was doing when, instead of letting Roman suck the digit in deep, he kept the intrusion shallow. The pad of his finger playing over the enamel of Roman’s teeth. He caught on a second later, when Peter forced the soft skin of his finger down over the hard point of Roman’s tooth, hard enough to pierce the skin.

Synapsis fired in his head, atom bombs exploded in his veins and his orgasm rushed through him like a punch to the gut when he tasted Peter’s blood on his tongue. He sucked the finger in deeper, sucking the blood which welled up in the wound and groaned with wordless ecstasy. Peter watched him through it with wide eyes and a pleased curl to his lips.

Pulling away from the girl, Roman fell onto his back and tried to catch his breath as sweat cooled across his skin and pooled in the hollow of his throat as he tried to stop the furious desire for more from taking over him and let Peter finish the girl off if he wanted to.

He heard them finish and settle down, the three of them spread out on his bed as their tired limbs pulled them under to sleep.

 

A red bricked house with white trimmings and a dark roof stood tall and imposing in the middle of a sea of snow. Clouds rolled in, dark and moving fast, lightning flashed across the skies. Ringing bell, a child on a swing, Jesus in stained glass, sunlight making him glow golden. A buzz filled his ears, parents moving into the house, the child swinging, the creek of chains. Trees, snow, a water tower. The same child playing on the floor of his room, words he couldn’t make out and the white mask watching the child play with toy soldiers. Snow. A storm speeding in. Clouds darkening, the impersonal white mask.

 

Roman woke with a silent gasp and stared up into the darkness the images from his dream burned into his eyes, brighter and clearer than they’d ever been before. On the other side of the bed, past the woman between them, Peter twitched in his sleep, his breathing unsteady but no other sign of distress.

 

Roman didn’t go back to sleep and had been awake for hours when he felt the bed dip as Peter and the girl climbed out. He stayed still, keeping his breaths measured and deep as the two of them awkwardly found clothes from the floor and shuffled around each other quietly. The girl slipped into the bathroom and Peters heavier steps went downstairs and into the kitchen.

The wall of his bedroom stared impassively back at him when he opened his eyes and tried to swallow down the twisting feelings which had taken up residence in his guts and had kept him awake most of the night.

With a grunt, he pulled himself out of bed and dressed with fresh clothes from the wardrobe. He brushed his hair back from his face and tried not to notice how the room smelt like sex.

Peter was in the kitchen when Roman made it down the stairs, swearing and muttering to the coffee machine as he stared at it through bleary eyes. He didn’t react when Roman stepped up next to him and put the pod in the hole and pressed the button, the machine starting with a loud hum.

Peter nodded his thanks and took a step back, leaning against the counter and looking at Roman for the first time through quick, darting eyes. Roman wrapped his arms around himself, as though he was cold and tried not to fidget.

Peter cleared this throat and braced his palms against the counter behind him.

“So…” he said.

“So…” Roman echoed, darting a look towards the other man.

“Last night...”

“Right.”

“Was kind of...” Peter trailed off, turning wide eyes towards Peter.

“Unexpected.” Roman finished for him.

“Yeah.” Peter let out a breathy laugh, “Definitely unexpected.”

The buzz of the machine stopped abruptly and Roman grabbed the cup out of habit. Peter stepped forward, hand extended. Roman glanced down at the cup blinking at it as though surprised to see it in his hands. Passing it to the other man, he watched as Peter lifted it to his lips and took a sip.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Roman watched as the girl from last night came down the stairs at speed and headed straight for the front door. The door closed behind her and Roman licked his lips and glanced back towards Peter. His eye slipped right off him and he turned back towards the coffee machine and started it again.

Returning to his position against the counter, he looked again at Peter as he took another sip of his coffee as his eyes drifted to Roman’s lips. Roman promised himself he wouldn’t blush, though he could feel his neck get warm with embarrassment and his throat grew tight as he remembered, in technicolour detail, how he must have looked last night, drooling around fingers and gagging for more. He looked away, and swallowed thickly, feeling exposed.

The machine silenced again and Roman grabbed the cup, clearing his throat. “You had the dream last night?” He asked, pressing his palms to the hot cup. The heated look cleared from Peter’s eyes and he nodded. “We have to do something before anyone else gets hurt.”

“You don’t have to do this, you have Nadia to worry about.”

“I’m in this whether I want to be or not.” Roman snapped. Peter’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“These guys aren’t fucking around.” he said lowly.

“You think I don’t know that?” Roman flared up, “I’m having the same fucking dreams you are.” his hand clenched around the cup in his hand but the fight drained from him when Peter didn’t rise to the fight, instead, he nodded and took another sip of his coffee.

“Those fucking dreams.” he murmured as he lowered the cup.

“The fucks up with the mask?” Roman asked, leaning against the counter.

“Could be shame?” Peter theorised aloud, “I mean, who wouldn’t be ashamed of doing that shit?” he looked towards Roman who nodded vaguely.

Downing his coffee, he winced through the burn and licked his lips, unsatisfied. Thirst clawed at his throat and he pushed off from the counter, dumping his cup in the sink as he made his way towards the fridge. He felt strangely self-conscious pulling out the bottle of Pryce’s drink and unscrewed the top. He could feel Peter’s eyes on him as he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long, deep swallow which soothed the thirst almost instantly. He could feel the knotted tension and burn of need uncoiled like stretching an aching limb.

Closing his eyes, he licked the residue from his lips and returned the bottle to the fridge. Avoiding the other man’s eyes, he glanced at his watch and tried to remember if he had any meetings for the day.

“We need to figure out who this kid is.” Roman said, glancing at Peter who nodded.

“That stained glass looked pretty distinctive.” he offered. Suddenly propelled into action Peter pushed away from the counter and deposited his mug next to Roman’s in the sink. “I need to see Destiny, see if I can get any more out of the dreams, if there’s something we’re missing.” he patted the pockets of his jacket and headed towards the door. Roman jogged around the counter island and caught up with him.

“Will she help? Doesn’t she think you should forget about them?” He reached for his own jacket at the door, Peter paused as he pulled it on before opening the door for the both of them.

“She’ll help.”  he said, sounding sure and when he looked at Roman his jaw was set and he could see the wolf behind his eyes.  

Roman opened his mouth but closed it again with a growl when his phone buzzed and Patrick’s name flashed onto his screen. Peter glanced at his phone too and paused when Roman answered the phone.

“I’m in the middle of something, I can’t-” he started, Peter turned towards the road. Pointing the mouthpiece of the phone away, Roman took long strides to catch up with the other man he spoke in a lowered voice “Peter, fucking-” grabbing his shoulder he jerked Peter to a stop, “Are you going to fucking walk there?” he hissed, Peter glanced around and swore when he saw his truck nowhere in sight. Roman’s hand squeezed Peter’s bicep. The idea had gotten so far into Peter’s head nothing was going to stop him, Roman could see him fairly vibrating out of his skin to get moving and figure this out. “Take my car.” he said, digging his keys out of his pocket and passing them to Peter, “Keep me posted, okay?” he didn’t release the keys until Peter smiled and nodded.

“Okay.” he promised and closed his hand around the keys when Roman released them.

Peter smiled again and ducked his head as he headed towards Roman’s car. Roman watched him go, only looking away when Patrick’s tinny voice called his name through the phone he was still holding.

“Yeah?” he snapped, turning back towards the house as his car rumbled to life.

 

He did have a meeting. Patrick met him at the entrance to the white tower and passed him the notes as he walked with him to the elevator. Roman listened with half an ear, he knew the cliff notes, made a point of keeping on top of these things but he nodded along with the rundown of changes which had happened since the night before when Roman left.

Roman pulled himself together and paid attention in the meeting, asking questions and probing deep, making the department scramble to answer him but the moment the door to his office closed on Patrick’s face he had to stop himself from drumming his fingers against every surface and staring at his phone.

Putting it to the side of his desk, he set himself to work and forced himself to concentrate. When his phone buzzed when he was on a call with the financial department his head whipped around to it, switching off from the conversation as he read the text which had popped up on his screen.

_Might have more details. Where are you?_

He responded, thumbs flying over the keyboard on the screen as he wrapped up the phone call abruptly and emailed down to security to add Peter onto the visitor’s log. Then turned back to the reports on one of the new experiments that had been sent up from the lab and was being reviewed for general release. It was dense, complicated stuff in the driest language possible, pages and pages of small font and research findings.

Patrick tapped sharply on the glass door before pushing it open and entering. Roman looked up at him, eyebrows raised in annoyance before he saw Peter slip past him into Roman’s office.

Peter looked out of place in his office, like a dark smudge on the endlessly white and impersonal rooms. His clothes were different from the ones he’d left Roman’s house in, but beside Roman’s impeccable assistant he looked scruffy and dishevelled. Patrick looked uncomfortable, his back unnaturally straight and mouth pursed as though he was holding back from saying something snide and bitchy.

“You have a… visitor.” Patrick said, flicking a look to his side as Peter stepped further into the room, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he strolled around the room, head twisting as he took in the office.

Peter let out a whistle and looked to Roman, who leant back in his chair to watch the gypsy inspect the room. “Nice digs.” Peter said, a smile curling his lips.

Roman smiled and lifted his hands behind his head as he rocked back in his chair and studied the other man. Peter had never really enjoyed being looked at, not like Roman, but he’d always found people's scorn for him amusing, narrow minded idiots scared of the big bad wolf without even realising how true that was. Peter’s smile shifted, turning a little wilder, a little hungry.

“Sir?” Patrick asked, eyes darting between them.

“Coffee.” Roman snapped, not sparing him a glance. Though Peter did, he looked away from Roman and inspected Patrick with a curious expression on his face. Roman wondered what Peter thought when he looked at the manicured young man in his tailored suit and polished black shoes. Patrick hesitated but turned and left the room, his shoes clicking on the polished white floor.

Glancing towards where Patrick had disappeared, Roman wondered vaguely if he was going to have a petulant assistant for the rest of the day. The thought came with a thrill of illicit excitement. Patrick had never been shy about his attraction for Roman, though he doubted Patrick realised how apparent it was. But the thought that Patrick felt in some way jealous of Peter was… thrilling.

He liked the thought that the connection which had weaved its way between them and around them, knotting them up so tightly Roman doubted they’d ever really be free of it, was plain to see. Since the first moment they’d met it had sparked and flared with want, hunger and attraction, at least for Roman, and even the year apart had done nothing to diminish their telling glances and the weighty silences filled with their shared past.

Peter picked up a pen off Romans desk, twisting it between his fingers and reading the text which ran down the barrel of the pen. "What is it with rich people and naming shit after themselves? You don’t just have to own things, you have to be seen owning them?" he asked as he flicked the pen back down onto the desk and crossing to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked down on Hemlock Grove.

Roman wanted to brand his name across Peter’s skin, to carve it into his flesh so deep his wolf would wear it under its fur. It was a childish, ferocious desire to claim possession of the other man. _Godfrey_ wouldn’t be enough, it was enough for the mills, for buildings and companies and everything else, but for Peter he wanted to carve his very own name, to feed it, letter by letter into his skin. _R.o.m.a.n._

He wanted to watch the blood swelling up and blooming from the split skin which would part like curtains Wine red slipping like rainwater across olive skin which Roman would lick from him as it was still hot. He’d had a taste of it now, he doubted that small offering would ever be enough.

He'd cut across the G which settled on the soft skin of his side and marked him as an outside to his own people. He’d curve the letters so they spread across the soft flesh of Peter’s belly and along the jut of powerful muscle. He wanted to dig deeper and deeper so that anybody who ever looked at Peter would know exactly who owned him.

He wondered how Peter would react if he voiced that desire, the words faltering and clumsy on his tongue, unable to properly convey the burning desire which prickled under his skin like spider bites. Peter would say something about how rich people being no better than animals pissing all over their property.

Roman leant back in his chair and smiled at Peter when he turned to look at him, raising a teasing eyebrow.

"Well where’s the fun in owning the best if nobody knows it?" he said finally. Peter laughed, shaking his head not sure if Roman was completely joking or not.

“How’d it go?” Roman asked, reaching forward to straighten a pile of folders on his desk top, shifting his mind towards their problem instead.

Peter shook his head and sighed, crossing back towards the desk. Roman watched as his fingers trailed over the surface of his desk and fiddled with a few things they encountered. His rings gleamed in the light and Roman found his eyes drawn to them, remembering with visceral intensity the metallic tang they’d left on his tongue.

“Went in, but there was nothing new. Just more details, I think.” Peter said, sounding exhausted and frustrated. “There was a storm coming in, but we knew that, the kid was wearing a shirt with a devil on it, horns, pitchfork.” he waved a hand vaguely and rubbed at his forehead in annoyance, squeezing his eyes shut as though trying to conjure the dream again, though Roman had no doubt he’d picked it apart for most of the day, aided by Destiny in whatever way she could.

Patrick entered without knocking and their heads turned as one at his entrance. At the sight of Peter sitting on Roman’s desk, Patrick paused, darting a look between them before crossing to the desk to deposit the coffee cups on a metal tray as though nothing had happened. Roman bit back a smile and watched as Patrick placed their cups in front of them with jerky movements without sparing them a glance.

Patrick couldn’t resist his eyes slipping towards the gypsy in the office as though his eyes were pulled there without him wanting it. Roman knew the feeling, but he suspected it was different to Roman’s own obsession.

Patrick straightened up and looked at Roman for any more instructions. Roman waved him away with a flick of his hand and shared a look with Peter as his assistant left.

“What’s his problem?” Peter asked, jerking his head towards where Patrick had disappeared. Roman shrugged and lifted his cup of coffee.

“He has a crush.” he murmured, considering the dark liquid in his cup. Glancing at Peter he saw the other man’s eyebrows rising high on his forehead as he bit back a laugh, peering out of the office door as best he could from his perch to see if he could spot Patrick.

Roman smiled, hiding it behind the lip of his coffee cup. “Anything else?” he prompted gently. Peter looked back at him, the amusement melting from his face as he furrowed his brow as he remembered.

“Yeah, there was something about being hot. ‘Hot hot hot, you’re not not not’ I don’t know.” he said with a growl of frustration. Roman blinked, hearing the words which had been muffled in the dream and something rose from his memories.

Lowering the cup and looking at Peter with wide eyes “ _‘Our team is red hot, your team is all shot, we're hot hot hot you’re not not not.’_ ” he recited the chant he’d heard a hundred times over the years.

“That’s the team cheer for the Hemlock Diablo's, isn’t it?” Peter asked, excitement threading into his words as Roman sat up straighter in his chair and nodded.

“The mascot’s a horned devil with a pitchfork.” he supplied.

“He's on the fucking little league team.” Peter said with a breathy laugh.

“The families in Hemlock Grove.”

Peter stood up from Romans desk as Roman pulled his laptop towards him and pulled up Google. They followed the trails through the web until they came across the stained-glass Jesus which had glowed so brightly in the stormy dream

“...1930 oldest church in the area got renovated.” Roman murmured aloud, skimming the article as Peter read over his shoulder, leaning against the desk and the back of Romans chair so they could both see the screen “...stained glass... Frank Banister…”

“Jesus” Peter breathed, his breath tickling Roman’s ear as they scrolled down and saw a photo of the house from their dream.

“The parsonage.” Roman said, turning his eyes towards Peter who turned and met his gaze from inches away. Adrenaline rushed through Roman’s blood, the bright, hot, electric feeling of hope which bubbled up in his chest. Finally, they had a chance to do something, finally the dreams were more than just something to be endured, they could save this little boy and another name wouldn’t be added to the list of the bodies left behind them.


	3. Chapter 3

The wolf is restless, prowling under his skin, feeding off the adrenaline as they sped into the country and towards their dream. He could feel it in his balls that they were heading in the right direction, the only thing left now was if they’d get there in time.

In the driver’s seat, Roman flexed his hands on the wheel and chewed on his bottom lip as he stared ahead as he manoeuvred the icy road. Peter’s eyes were drawn to the movement, caught by the soft flesh of Romans plump lip as his white teeth sunk into it. Peter shifted in his seat and rummaged around in the console of the car for the packet of cigarettes he knew Roman would keep there.

Roman shot him a glance but didn’t say anything when Peter freed a cigarette and stuck it between his lips, patting the pockets of his jacket for his lighter. Roman reached into the console without looking and pulled out an orange one, offering it to him without a word.

It was as natural as breathing to pass Roman the cigarette when he’d taken his own drag, filling his lungs with the smoke and praying it soothed the jangling of his nerves.

Roman took the cigarette in his long fingers and lifted it to his mouth with barely a glance towards Peter when he accepted it, as though knowing instinctually Peter would be there, sharing it with him. Roman hollowed his cheeks as he took a deep drag and Peter let himself watch.

It was weird to be so close to the unnamed thing they'd been skirting around for as long as they've known each other. The thing that glimpsed in lingering looks and shared glances, and was still, despite everything that had happened the night before, was unmentioned. Roman remained his usual stoic self and if Peter didn’t have a scabbed over cut on his finger, he could almost believe he'd dreamt the whole thing up, some twisted wet dream he hadn't realised his imagination was good enough to conjure.

Peter ran his thumbnail along the cut on his index finger. It was bruised as well, Roman’s teeth weren't unnaturally sharp, they were just teeth. Touching the injury, he felt hot and shivery with sense memory. The wolf rumbled and Peter shifted in his seat. He didn't know why he’d done that last night, surprisingly the wolf hadn’t rebelled at the offered blood, though Peter feels it should have. It had been a reckless, dangerous thing to do. Offering your blood to an upir at the best of times was stupid, but during sex? When you had no idea how they were managing their thirst? It was asking to have your throat ripped out.

But beside moaning like a pornstar and coming apart at the taste, Roman hadn’t sought any more than Peter had offered him, a handful of drops at best. It was hard to admit, even to himself, that he’d have given him a lot more than that.

The click of fingers in front of his face jerked Peter out of his thoughts. Roman held the cigarette in front of him and Peter took it, breathing the smoke in deep as he rubbed at his eyes, trying to dispel the memory of the night before. Now wasn't the time, he suspected he’d have trouble finding the right time to dissect his behaviour the night before. He couldn't even say it was the drink, though they'd both had enough of that to be a legitimate excuse. No, he'd known what would happen the moment he noticed Kate’s eyes slipping away from him towards the looming figure of Roman at the bar. He’d looked at the way she eyed him up as she flirted with Peter, eyes flicking between them like she was picturing herself in the space separating them and had known, in technicolour detail, what they were going to do.

Or he'd thought he had, he hadn't expected, though perhaps he should have, being unable to look away from Roman, watching how he moved, his natural fluidity and grace heightened and making him magnetic. Peter hadn’t expected the furious desire which had propelled him to touch the other man, crawling out of his skin and the wolf restless with the desire to have more than the fleeting touches they'd shared accidentally as they made it up to the bed. He'd always known Roman had lips that were damn near indecent.

“Shit.” Roman muttered and his hands tightened around the steering wheel as the car moved on the icy road unexpectedly. Peter opened his mouth to say something about the choice of car for a drive in the country when he caught sight of the church, sitting pretty amidst the snow.

Roman slowed the car, seeing it too, and the two of them leant forward as they tried to catch a glimpse of the parsonage. The clouds above them were rolling, dark and alive with an impending storm.

“There.” Peter said, pointing towards a house on a hill and Roman made the turn off. He could hear the other man take a deep breath in when they got close to the red brick building. It was just like in the dream, so familiar it was like he'd known it his whole life.

They shared a look before getting out of the car and walking as one up the path towards the house, their steps crunching on the dense snow. Lighting flashed across the dark sky and a few seconds later, the thunder followed. Peter remembered when he was a kid and Lynda taught him how to tell how far away a storm was by the seconds between the flash and the rumble. It was a sudden, childish memory which seemed out of place in the moments between their horror-show dreams and the looming reality of them.

On the brick porch, Peter stepped forward and opened the outer screen door. Roman looked at him as his reached for the bell.

"What do we say?" Roman asked, voice lowered but still seemed loud in the snow-covered landscape. Peter shrugged and watched Roman twist the bell and knock on the window before stepping back and casting a glance around. Peter did the same, eyes searching between the trees a little way off, hair on the back of his neck prickling with the feeling of being watched.

“Can I help you?” a woman asked, sounding unsure as she opened the door, her eyes flicking between them.

Peter had enough time to realise what an odd pair they were, Roman in his expensive coat and scarf, looking like the guy from the cover of _Business Magazine_ and Peter looking very much like the gypsy mechanic he was.

A cry came from inside the house, a child screaming for his mom. Roman shouldered his way past her into the house, taking only a second to orientate himself in the house before racing towards the screaming child, he and the woman scrambled to mount the stairs.

Peter followed close behind, the pounding of his steps on the old stairs joined the others but he felt something tug, the wolf's attention jerking out the window at the first landing. He saw shifting between the trees, it might have been a figure, but all he could see as he paused before mounting the next flight was darker shadows moving between the trees.

They could hear the buzz of insects when they reached the next landing. It was a low hum which turned into a whine when Peter got his hand on the handle of the door and pushed it open.

The air was thick with bees and Peter took a faltering step deeper into the room as he tried to see where they had come from. The woman was shouting, her voice high and panicked and a male's voice had joined the commotion in the hall.

Roman moved through the room like a man possessed, scooping the boy and the blankets he was huddling under, into his arms and carried him bodily out of the room, Peter followed, pressing close as though to offer another body of protection between the boy and the bees as he closed the door against the chaos.

In the hall, Peter left Roman to wrangle the hysterical family out of the house. Peter's eyes returned to the woods beyond the property and the shifting shadows between the trunks. This time, he saw a figure distinctly, the figure in black was looking up at the house, watching the chaos within from behind the expressionless white mask. Peter felt the wolf tug, pulling him to give chase.

He took off down the stairs, hearing the family and Roman rush after him but he was too focused on his prey. He heard the screen door bang shut behind him and the crunch of snow beneath his boots as he set off at a run towards where the masked man was slipping away.

The wolf howled and roared beneath his skin. Stripping his jacket off, he pushed himself forward, shedding his clothes behind him and feeling the prickle of the cold air but barely registered it, his blood boiled and he felt hot as his skin began to fear apart as his bones cracked and reformed.

“ _Peter_!” he heard Roman shouting behind him, his voice buffeted by the wind. The wolf was already tearing through his humanity and he couldn’t make himself stop or try to pull it back, he could only keep running forward, staggering through the snow as he kept his eyes on the figure up ahead. “ _Peter you don’t have to do this alone!_ ”

His human face steamed in the snow as the wolf’s paws pounded against the ground. He hunted.

Behind him, he could hear Romans footsteps and the wolf rumbled low in his throat at the sound of it. Part of his mind labelled the upir as _pack_ and that seemed right, that seemed important. History said werewolves and upir could never hunt as one, could never exist on the same side of a fight, but it felt right to have Roman at his back as they closed in on the figure in black ahead of them.

Together, they closed in on the figure in a clearing beneath the bare winter trees. The figure shifts, darting looks between them and searching for an opening. His fear is instinctual of the wolf, but it doesn’t go beyond that, he isn’t _afraid_ of Peter, as though knowing what he is lessened some of the fear, but despite that human nature made him wary of the predatory baring its teeth at him.

Snow crunched under a combat boot and Peter whipped his head around, growling a warning to Roman who pivoted in the ice and stopped the blow aimed for him. Peter had enough time to register Roman was alright before a strike landed against his own side and he’s forced to stagger sideways under the blow.

The fight was an ugly one. Roman and Peter fought as one being, moving around each other and separating their prey. They danced across the ice and struck out against the expressionless white masks.

It’s over before Peter’s ready for it to be. Sinking his teeth into the tender flesh of a jugular, hot, wet blood flooded into his mouth as the skin and cartilage come apart like wet tissue under the punishing strength of his jaw and the sharp point of his teeth. Behind him, Roman downs the final opponent. With blood on his muzzle Peter took deep, panting breaths which misted in the cold air as he surveyed their defeated prey.

It’s difficult to call the wolf back and allow the human to return to the fore. The wolf’s instincts cry to keep hunting, to find the next enemy he can sink his teeth into and howl his dominance of. But Peter pulled it back, with a look towards Roman, he sunk down onto his side in the snow and returned to his human form with the tear of flesh and reforming of bones sharper and sweeter than the transformation.

The snow is cold against his bare skin, but he feels hot. Shivering in the snow he’s aware of Roman on his knees beside him, closer than people ever got to the wolf, closer than most people were comfortable with. Roman was sucking in deep, panting breaths which fogged in the icy air as his cheeks and nose turned pink from the cold.

Roman didn’t seem to notice anything but Peter, wide eyes transfixed on his shivering form. Peter remembered the one other time Roman had witnessed the transformation back into human flesh and how he’d said, breathless and awed that it was _beautiful_ ; the words rushing out of him like a prayer.

The transformation had never been called that before, inhuman and cruel, gory, violent, but never beautiful. Like Roman couldn’t imagine anything more lovely than the tearing of flesh and slick of blood over broken forms.

Twisting around on the snow, Peter looked up at the other man when the haze cleared from his eyes. Roman blinked at him when Peter edged his hand closer to him over the cold ground, nudging his fingers against Roman’s knees where they dug into the ground beside his huddled form. His gloved hand fell to touch Peter’s, the feel of the thick fabric a surprise against his over-sensitive skin.

“Shit, I need to get your clothes.” Roman said, the sense of awe pushed back from his expression as though only just realising the change had finished.

Roman was spurred into motion, his hands leaping to the buttons on his coat as he pushed himself up from his vigil at Peter’s side. Peter was sluggish to follow him; his limbs shook with exhaustion and the cold which had begun to creep in under his skin. When Roman’s thick, expensive coat was draped across his shoulders, Peter let out a shuddering breath and turned his face into the thick wool, breathing in the smell of the other man as he listened to him get up and hurried steps crunched through the snow.

Blinking open his eyes, Peter’s gaze was drawn towards the sprawled bodies on the ground.  The man he’d torn the throat out of lay on his back, blood seeping sluggishly onto the snow where it bloomed along the ice crystals. He could still taste the blood in his throat, could feel how the skin had torn beneath his teeth, similar but somehow different to the animal’s he’d hunted on full moons.

Struggling to his feet, Peter’s limbs felt shaky and too weak to hold up his weight. He wrapped the coat around himself and took off with slow, stumbling steps in the direction Roman had gone.

Roman returned before he’d made it a hundred feet from the clearing. Peter’s clothes were in a messy bundle in his arms which he pressed into Peter’s hands when he got close, resting a hand on his arm as though to steady him. Through the thick wool of the coat, Roman was hot to touch, his warmth seeping in and Peter had to fight the desire to lean into him and sap his warmth for himself.

He dressed quickly. Roman stood just in front of him, holding his coat limply in his hands as he watched Peter pull his layers of clothes back on, each layer another flimsy barrier between him and the wolf. When he shrugged his jacket on, locking in the heat, he heard a jingle from his pocket and reached inside. His rings were tangled with his necklaces, twisting around each other and cold to touch, but they warmed quickly in his hold.

He could feel Roman’s eyes on him as he replaced the talismans of his people. Peter’s hands were shaking, and he didn’t think it was from the cold.

The shadows held that strange quality that came with deep winter. The snow turned the setting sun silver and the shadows grey even as the sky above darkened into night. The strange twilight made the clearing look like something from another world. Beneath the spindly dark trees, the figures lay sprawled across the ground like forgotten shadows, their white masks looking peaceful in expressionless rest.

Crossing to the shovel, discarded beside what was left of the wolf form, Peter looked blankly at the snow-covered earth. The blade of the shovel barely cut into the dirt when he forced it down and he let out a sigh as he surveyed the frozen clearing.

“The fuck do we do now?” he grumbled, darting a look towards Roman who was looking across the clearing at the figures spread across the snow.

“So, we’re killing now.” Roman said into the quiet, as though unsure of what he was saying. Peter adjusted his hold on the handle of the shovel and studied the taller man. He glowed in the darkness, skin almost as pale as the snow that surrounds them. He turned searching eyes to Peter and Peter held still under it, not sure what to say.

Lifting the shovel again, Peter dug the blade into the earth with force, it went a little deeper this time, a clump of earth coming loose which he knocked aside with the blade.

"Should’ve made them did their own grave first." he said with a growl as he tossed the shovel away from him. Patting his pockets, he pulled out his carton of cigarettes and moved to sit down on a log as he extracted one and put it between his lips. The small flame was bright in the darkness and he fought not to shy away from it. He felt like an exposed nerve, as he sucked the nicotine into his lungs he hunched in on himself as though to keep his body from coming apart. Roman drifted closer, waving the offered cigarette away with a flick of his hand as he kept his eyes trained on the still people in the snow. “We can’t bury them, the grounds too damn hard. We’ll be digging till Wednesday.” Peter said around the butt of the cigarette, turning his own eyes to the ground.

Time was behaving strangely. When Roman glanced at his watch and frowned, Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket and blinked at the bright screen and the time telling him it was later than he thought.

Shifting, he realised his body was going stiff and numb from the cold.

“We need to get moving.” Roman said lowly, rubbing his hands together. Peter found himself strangely reluctant to move. He was cold and exhausted and could still taste blood in his mouth, his skin felt two sizes too small and his mind wouldn’t quiet, but here, in the still clearing with Roman he was curiously settled. He couldn’t help the thought that the moment they left the clearing, with or without the bodies, he could no longer escape the repercussions of what he’d done.

Frisking the bodies was an experience Peter didn’t let his mind linger on. There wasn’t much in the pockets, no phones or ID, nothing that could give any clue to the masked figures or why they were killing kids. In the pack the larger figure was wearing, they found a rope, a knife, a packet of matches and a set of car keys. Peter wordlessly pocketed the knife, keys and matches as Roman kneeled beside one of the bodies and started tying the rope around its ankles before moving to the next body.

Like in everything, they worked together seamlessly. The progress was slow over uneven terrain and their journey was impeded by the darkness. Peter hadn’t realised how far he’d chased them. Distance was different in the wolf’s form, running was different. He cast a glance towards Roman beside him who trudged on with his head down.

They made it to a road as the predawn light made the snow glow bright and pure. It was easier dragging the bodies along the road but Peter’s skin crawled with how exposed they were. The wolf paced restlessly, twitching under his skin and growling low at the slightest noise.

Coming to a stop, he looked ahead at the road. It’d turn off to the left in a little bit and they’d find Roman’s car. Glancing back at the bodies he came to a decision.

"Keys." he spoke for the first time in hours. Roman blinked at him, his steady, tread coming to an abrupt halt with the interruption.

"What?" he rasped.

"I'll get the car." Peter explained. Roman blinked ahead at the road as though only just realising they’d reached one. He passed the keys over without a word and Peter looked at him properly.

Now that they’d come to a stop Roman struggled to tear his eyes away from the open throat of Peter’s victim. The blood was dark and congealed, the cold turning it viscus. Peter hadn’t witnessed the blood lust in Roman, he suspected he managed it with whatever that drink was he kept in his fridge, but Peter didn’t know when he’d last had some. They’d left the white tower together yesterday afternoon. As Roman’s throat bobbed, Peter took a step towards him.

"Hey,” he called gently, Roman turned wide, dilated eyes towards him, “you don’t need to go there.” he reminded gently. It seemed to take a moment before Roman grasped the words and he took a faltering step back from the corpse.

“I'm alright, I've got it handled.” when his eyes were pulled back towards the body he caught himself and rubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe I should get the car.” he conceded. Peter extended his hand with the keys and let their gloved hands brush when he passed them over.

Before Roman had made it three steps down the road, a gasp broke into the still dawn air. It sounded loud after the quiet and the shuddering breath that came out as the body struggled to breathe seemed grotesquely loud.

“Is she alive?” Roman gasped as Peter crossed the snow quickly to the struggling figure in black. He heard Roman swear behind him but he concentrated on releasing the white mask from the hood of the figure.

The girl that was revealed looked shockingly young. Her skin would have been honey golden but it was now pale against the bright red of the blood which had bloomed across the side of her face. She was breathing fast, eyes darting around in panic.

"Help me." she said in a high, frightened whisper.

Peter stood up, backing away into Roman who was watching the girl on the ground with wide, pale eyes. Together, they turned away from her and retreated to a safe distance.

"What do we do?" Roman asked in a whisper. Peter shrugged, helplessly.

"We turn her in?"

"Are you kidding me?" Roman snapped. Peter pulled his eyes away from the girl where they were drawn like magnets.

"What else are we meant to do?” he snapped back.

“Not implicate ourselves in their murder for starters.” Roman said in a low, calm voice which barely contained the panic as he nodding to the dead one.

“They're serial killers, we acted in self defense.” Peter offered, though he knew it was flimsy. Roman with his billion-dollar company might have a couple of lawyers that could make it stick but it would be another story for a Romani drifter.

"If we get drawn into this it'll draw attention to us.” Roman said intently, darting a look towards the bodies before turning back to Peter "Reporters sticking their noses into stuff that is none of their business.” and there was a lot of things neither of them wanted people prying into. A lot of secrets built up around werewolves and upir.

"We're already hip deep in this.” Peter reminded him gently.

"Not if we don’t tell anyone.” Roman said, his pale eyes fixed on Peter and saying more than just the words.

"You’re not proposing that we... kill her?” Peter’s voice faltered on the words. “Shee-it, and you thought I was dark.” he muttered.

“What if there’s more of them?” Roman continued “She gets a message out, they show up at my door looking for payback. The baby's there, man.” Roman sad in a whisper, close to pleading. The wolf rumbled, muscles shifting under skin at the thought of Nadia getting hurt in the crossfire.

“Let’s just find out what she knows first.” Peter reasoned, pushing the wolf aside.

With a deep breath in to steady himself, Peter crossed back to the girl on the ground. Romani weren’t violent tricksters, their cons took money and sometimes dignity, but rarely lives. When he was fifteen he and Lynda had stayed with a family who’d gotten in deep with a local mob. Two of the sons were killed because of a slight against the mob. The elder, Ivan, a hard-eyed man who’d made his own way from the old country when he was a scrappy teenager, had retaliated against the mob with swift cruelty most Romani weren’t capable of, most _people_ weren’t capable of. Peter had watched as Ivan interrogated one of the mob leader's sons, not a single expression had crossed his face as he worked. When he’d gotten what he needed from the man, he’d dumped him on his father's doorstep half dead. Lynda got Peter out of town that night before things could escalate, but the memory had stayed with him.

“Who are you?” he asked, squatting down beside the girl. When she was too slow to reply, he let himself get angry. “What’s your fucking name?” he kept his expression cool when she shook.

“What are you? How were you a wolf and now…” she trailed off, eyes going wide and scared. That didn’t sit right, the wolf growled with displeasure. The other masked figure had known exactly what Peter was, he’d backed away in fear but it wasn’t of him, it was fear trained into obedience, the remaining threads of reptilian instinct. He’d known what Peter was, why didn’t she?

“You answer, you don’t ask.” he snarled at her.

“My name is Sara,” she finally said, in a shuddering voice, before, “I think,”

“You think?”

Her eyes strayed the dead body “Is he really dead?” she asked in a squeak.

“Who?” he prompted.

Her mouth moved as she looked between Roman, Peter and the body on the ground near her.  

“Sara Chase, 813 Auburn Lane, Valencia, California. Sara Chase.” she let out a sob, the words rushing out of her like something drilled into her through repetition. When she was done, she blinked up at him. “I haven’t said that in ten years. Thank you,” she gasped between sobs. “Thank you.”

“Who was that?” Peter asked, drawing her attention back to the dead body. Her eyes lingered on him.

“He made us call him John Bo.” she said in a low, shaky voice. “He kidnaped me from my bedroom while my parents were sleeping. He had a group in the desert, in Utah. Some of the others were kidnapped too.” her voice came faster, the words tumbling over each other, “He thought killing families would bring the apocalypse, and that god would come down from heaven-”

“You coulda run away at any moment, even here in the forest.” Peter snapped, cutting her off.

“He would have killed me,” she gasped, “he killed so many of us, made the rest watch. I don’t feel good.” she said suddenly, her jaw moving as she swallowed convulsively. “Our cars parked just up the road.” she offered, her eyes drifting down the road before returning to Peter “Can I ask you one thing? Please? If I die, will you tell my mom, I'm sorry?” she stared up at him with wide, imploring eyes.

“Peter.” Roman said gently. When Peter looked, Roman turned his phone so Peter could see the screen. On it, there was an image of a missing person’s report, a pretty blond child smiled out from the screen and the stats were listed down the side, matching what the girl in the snow had said. Shifting his eyes away from the phone, he met Roman’s eyes, his mouth was open in shock and his eyes shifted between Peter and the girl.

Rising, Peter and Roman retreated a few feet away from the figures on the ground again and spoke in low voices.

“She knew all the names, the addresses... all those details.” Roman said, his eyes wide and earnest as he studied Peter.

“Yeah, well so could anybody else.” Peter said, “It’s all on the web.” he gestured towards Roman’s phone in his hand.

“It looks just like her.” Roman said, cutting another look towards the girl. Peter scrubbed a hand over his face and ran his fingers roughly through his hair.

“This group, or whatever they are, they know what they're doing. They obviously have a plan.”

“And this is part of it? Look at her, you think she's capable of running game on us? She's a mess.” Roman insisted, gesturing to the shivering, pale girl.

“I don’t care how crazy these fuckers are, it was her choice to murder.” Peter hissed, the wolf growled and rumbled in his chest, pushing at the barrier of his skin. Roman stepped closer, when he spoke his voice was low and insistent, demanding Peter’s eyes and his attention.

“That twisted fuck became like a father to her, someone’s tapped in that deep and they tell her to do something terrible, whatever, it’s not her choice.” his voice came out strong and the depth of his feelings filled the icy air between them. _Who you trying to convince, Roman?_ Peter wanted to ask, his mind filled with the questions he’d been wondering: what had happened to Olivia and what was it, besides the loss of his sister and cousin which had put that haunted look in Roman’s eyes.

He nodded to Roman, “Okay, I’ll go get her car. She says it’s close.” Roman nodded and Peter turned and began his trek down the road towards where the girl’s eyes had strayed without another word.

 

The car was a big, new SUV parked under a copse of trees a little way off the road. The key he’d taken from the bag unlocked it with a cheerful beep and he slipped into the driver's seat with a sigh, as his aching body sunk into the plush seat. He sat there for a second, feeling his bones and the pull of tired muscles before and let out a sigh and started the car, returning down the path he’d just walked.

Roman saw the car approaching and helped Sara, who he’d untied, to her feet. Peter watched from the driver’s seat as they approached, Roman holding the girl up as they made staggered, slow progress down the road towards him. They were talking, Roman’s focus on the girl he was helping, his whole world taken up with her. Peter wanted to know what he was saying, what kindness the upir was offering. That was probably Roman’s best kept secret, that despite all his wealth, his callousness and indifference, he was _kind._

 

The air seemed colder when he got out and circled the car to where Roman had leant the girl against the side of the vehicle and was pulling the door open.

“I'm thirsty,” Sara murmured, “can I have a pop?”

Peter was moving before he’d fully realised what was wrong. The wolf pressed close under his skin and he restrained a growl as he slammed her back against the car and pressed close, the knife pulled from his pocket and pressed to her throat.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded. Roman tried to pull him back, trying to sooth him, but the wolf had caught a scent and demanded an answer.

“I'm Sara.” she gasped, trying to pull back from the knife at her throat.

“Bullshit, who are you?” he repeated.

“Peter!” Roman shouted, his hand on his shoulder trying to pull him back.

“She's not from California.” Peter snapped, “She's not from Utah. She asked for a pop. only people from the Midwest say that.” A lifetime of travelling had taught him those tricks of language, the small details which changed from state to state and exposed outsiders.

“Chill out, Jesus,” Roman insisted, sounding panicked as he tried to pry Peter away from her, “maybe her best friend from the cult was from Omaha. Relax.” he got close and his voice was insistent. “Peter, you’re sick, man. From turning.”

“Shut up.” Peter snapped, feeling the wolf bare its teeth.

“Calm down, okay?” Roman urged. “Let her go. It’s affecting your judgment, you’re not yourself.” Roman pulled him away, grabbing his arms and turning him to face the taller man as he spoke in a low, urgent voice.

She moved, fast but clumsily, reaching into the back seat of the car. Peter pulled away from Roman, lunging towards her and pulling her back. The blade slipped into the soft flesh of her belly, the sharp-edged metal sinking into her easily. The wolf howled beneath his skin and he could smell blood on the air as it slipped across his gloved hand, soaking the material and turning sticky and cold in the frigid air.

Roman pulled him back. “You stabbed her over a fucking soda?” he shouted, voice going high and wavery.

“She was reaching for something, what was it?” he demanded, pulling against Roman’s hold.

The girl smiled, the wide-eyed fear melted away. There was blood on her teeth when she bared them at him, lifting her hand she showed the small metal hoop in her hand. It took him a moment to realise what it was. When he did, a cold calm raced through him and for a moment, as he pushed her away and fumbled in the foot well of the car, the wolf and human were perfectly aligned.

He threw the grenade into the trees and fell with Roman, as he pulled him around the car, seconds before dirt and snow exploded into the air along with a boom which settled in the base of his spine. The world went hazy for a moment as the earth shook. When the ringing in his ears had faded, he looked up from under his arms which he’d thrown over his head at the blast and met the wide eyes of Roman. They looked at each other for a moment as they remained crouched together on the ground.

There was the sound of gravel shifting and Peter’s head whipped around. The girl bared her teeth at them and let out a choked breath.

“The caul.” she said in a low voice, “You can’t stop us.”

With a growl, Peter lunged towards her and grasped the thick handle still lodged in her stomach and twisted it. Baring his teeth, he watched the light dim from her eyes.

“What if you'd been wrong about the grenade?” Roman asked, leaning back on his palms in the dirty snow.

“I wasn’t.” Peter whispered.

 

They put the two bodies in the car and pulled the pin of the second grenade they found in the foot well. They watched from a distance as it burned, ash raining down on the snow in the aftermath of the thundering explosion.

“What’s that stupid thing people say about friendship?” Peter asked, feeling numb, “A good friend will be a shoulder to cry on when you need them, but a true friend helps you hide the body.” beside him, Roman let out a laugh.

“We've got a lot of bodies behind us.” he murmured. Peter felt a smile curl his lips and he breathed a laugh though there was no amusement to it.

 

The drive back to Roman’s place was done in silence. They both watched the scenery pass by, lost in their own thoughts as the smell of burnt metal and dirt clung to their clothes.

Peter’s body ached from the change and the hike through the countryside. But despite the exhaustion, he felt wired, the wolf prowling just under his skin, closer and angrier than it had ever been before. He’d felt almost consumed by the wolf in the year after that night in the church, but now that time seemed like a small irritation, now the wolf was just beneath the surface, hungry to tear its way out of his flesh and run.

Roman chain smoked as he drove, fingers drumming against the wheel as he maneuverer through the icy roads. He’d shrugged when Peter declined the offered cigarette, just sucked deeper on the filter so his cheeks hollowed and darted a look towards Peter’s leg which was jumping restlessly in the foot well.

Once or twice, Roman opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again before any words made it out. Peter felt an irrational surge of annoyance when he did it, the wolf twitching unhappily each time it happened.

It was a relief to climb out of the car when they reached Roman’s imposing house. Peter followed him inside without really knowing why. The smart thing to do would go to Destiny’s and tell her he’d gone against the moon again, to ask her advice and skip town when she inevitably told him it was the only thing he could do. Instead, he trailed after Roman, closing the door behind them as the upir made a beeline towards the kitchen with a single-minded focus.

“Mind if I take a shower?” Peter asked, eyes drawn up the stairs towards where the master bathroom was. Once he voiced the thought he felt almost possessed by it, blood, smoke and dirt in his nose and his clothes suddenly felt uncomfortable pressed against his skin and the dirt he hadn’t brushed off between turning back and dressing in the frigid twilight with clothes he’d cast to the ground. Roman nodded, waving a hand vaguely towards the stairs.

“Mi casa and shit.” he mumbled, opening the door of the fridge.

Peter didn’t linger, mounting the stairs two at a time instead. Closing the door behind him, he peeled his clothes off and avoided looking in the mirror, knowing the raw, bruised feeling of his skin wouldn’t be visible in his reflection. He turned the water up hot enough to billow steam into the room and when he stepped under it, it hurt until his skin numbed enough for him to stand it. He could feel the cold leaching from his body, washed away down the drain and leaving him feeling limp and heavy-limbed under the onslaught.

He’d been told since the moment they knew what he was, that he should never go against the moon. That sickness took over any wolf that did and they lost their humanity to the animal. It was worse than death, worse than just madness, it was a violent, terrible and prolonged death which took many innocent people along with it. He knew this, but the more he went against the moon, the closer he got to vargulf, the less he cared about ever coming back. It didn’t seem so bad to be lost to the animal within, the wild, ferocious wolf that thrummed with life and was more potent, powerful and pure than anything else he’d ever felt. He knew, abstractly, that that was the wolf talking. The creature that had taken over Christina’s body and mind, pushing the naive young girl to kill hadn’t been her, it was a madness, a furious, ugly madness which hunted for sport and pleasure.

The wolf that rumbled beneath Peter’s skin didn’t feel like that, it felt like the wolf which had been a part of him since he hit maturity, locked away and contained until the night of the full moon, but always there, whether he acknowledge it or not. But maybe that was the madness tricking him.

Turning his face into the spray of water he rubbed at his body with Roman’s body wash and breathed in the smell of the other man as it hung in the heavy, steamy air as he rinsed the suds from his skin and bowed his head to watch the foam disappear down the drain.

With the rush of the water cut off, the room seemed deafeningly quiet, the water which dripped from his body and hair sounded like drum beats against the tiles. He felt on the verge of the change, his skin was two sizes too small and the brush of the soft towel felt like nails across raw nerves. Abandoning his soiled clothes on the bathroom floor, Peter wrapped the towel around his waist and exited the bathroom. His feet barely made a sound on the stairs down, he didn’t know if Roman didn’t hear him approach or just didn’t bother looking up, but Peter took the moment to consider the other man.

Roman was hunched forward on the couch looking at his hands. His hair hung loose, falling in his face and he seemed eerily still. The pinched look had disappeared from his face and colour had returned to his cheeks and lips, replacing the strained white which was the only clue he’d let show of the strain of his thirst.

Peter wanted to fuck him. It prickled at his skin like the turn of the wolf. Taking his time to look at the other man unobserved, Peter let himself feel the hunger simmer as he mixed fantasy and memories from the night before, it was an absentminded arousal which seemed at odds with the horror of the day.

“That was a fucked up thing you did.” Roman said lowly. Peter crossed his arms over his chest and leant back against the large table that dominate the downstairs space. “You were right, but it was fucked up.” Roman continued. He tilted his head towards Peter and looked at him through the curtain of loose hair. Peter bowed his head.

“We both knew what they were capable of. We’ve both had the dreams.”

“So it wasn’t the vargulf putting you on edge?” Roman asked, pulling himself up, unfolding from the couch to his full height and studying Peter with watchful eyes.

After a moment, Peter looked up and swallowed thickly before admitting “I don’t know.”

“You gonna go crazy and kill me too?” Roman asked, sounding almost casual as he studied him.

“No.” Peter’s lips twitched. Roman drifted closer.

“You sure? I’ve seen a vargulf before, remember? I’ve seen what one can do.”

“I’m sure.”  

“I just saw you tear a guy's throat out and stab a girl for asking for a drink.” he said, voice low as he stopped just in front of Peter.

“I’m sure.” Peter repeated, “The wolf likes you.” he said boldly, looking up at him and meeting his gaze. “We’ve killed together and that means something.” he said lowly, knowing deep down that it was true.

Roman’s eyes widened and his chest rose and fell with deep breaths. His tongue slipped out to dampen his plush lips and Peter’s eyes were drawn to the movement, feeling the air around them crackle.

Roman’s mouth was made for indecent things, for spreading around a cock and going red and puffy from abuse. His display the other night had proved he knew it, at least partially, and sometimes it showed in the twist of his smile, the glimmer of saliva across the plush bottom lip. Other times, it was like he had no idea what those lips promised without even meaning to.

Roman sucked in a breath and Peter felt the shifting of the air so close to his face.

“Kiss me.” Roman doesn’t know how to ask for anything, he demands it, and Peter had always found it hard to resist giving him everything. Even back in school, when everything in and around him told him to deny the rich Godfrey heir.

Peter reached up and snaked his hand around Roman’s neck and pulled him down forcibly. He bowed willingly, folding into the motion with a shuddering moan.

There was a metallic tang to his lips which parted softly at the press of Peter’s hungry mouth. The kiss was deep and slow. It was a kiss that had been hovering over them since they met, one they’d been denying themselves for years. Peter’s hand fisted in Roman’s hair and the taller man let out a high, sharp noise at the tug.

Fire roared under his skin, the wolf howled with want and Peter surged forward, pressing himself bodily against Roman who clung to him, fingers digging into the bare skin of Peter’s sides as he opened for the assault.

Once set in motion, Peter felt consumed by hunger, an animal, ferocious hunger which drove him forward and forced Roman to the ground. He went willingly, the long lines of his body folding to the floor as though the forcefulness of Peter’s actions were the most sensual caress. Their hands tangled as they stripped Roman of his clothes, peeling the expensive fabrics from his body roughly. The towel around Peter’s waist came away under Roman’s hands which grabbed forcefully at his skin, his strong fingers digging into the meat of Peter’s flank, hard enough to bruise as he pulled Him between Roman’s legs as they parted around him like he was born to do it.

Peter wanted to devour him, to taste the flushed and swollen lips that moved beneath his own. They parted for breath and Peter trailed his lips over the other man’s skin, the prickle of pale stubble burning his over-sensitized lips and he chased the sensation as he mouthed down his long, arching throat, sucking and biting at his skin.

Beneath him, Roman gasped and shuddered, aborted moans and choking gasps pouring from his lips. His submission was absolute, though his hands on Peter’s body were forceful and bold. The wolf pressed against the barrier of his skin and rumbled pleasurably at the stretch of Roman’s throat bared to him. He laved his tongue along the line of the upirs jugular as he dragged his nails down his sides. Roman made a desperate sound and pressed into the rough touch with a long arch of his body, his hips jerking forward instinctively, seeking friction. Peter pressed his smile into the pale skin under his mouth and moved his attention down towards his heaving chest. Roman’s hands roved, grabbing at Peter and shifting over his body, one threading into Peter’s hair and fisting tightly as his other moved restlessly over Peter’s body, grabbing desperately but with no clear objective in his movements, his hands slipping in the sweat which was prickling across his skin.

Peter’s hand gripped into the meat of Roman’s thigh and pulled it up over his shoulder in a breathtaking stretch of his long leg. Roman shuddered as he was manhandled. Pulling back, Peter rested one hand  on the ground beside the other man’s head and looked down at him.

Roman was made for pleasure, his pale skin flushed and shimmering with sweat which dampened his hair in art-less disarray. He gave himself over to sensation in a way not many people did, unashamed and uninhibited his lips parted around desperate, hungry noises. Peter wanted to devour him whole, to sink his teeth into him and swallow him down. Roman’s free leg clamped around Peter’s side as he lifted his hips, working them against Peter impatiently.

Peter growled low in his throat, his fingers digging into the leg over his shoulder and thrust forward so his dick slid along Roman’s with the slide of hot skin and the smear of precome.

Roman bared his teeth in a smile and looked up at him with a smug curl of his swollen lips. Peter felt a laugh bubble in his chest and he thrust forward again, seeing the look melt off the other man’s face as a shudder ran through him.

Releasing the leg over his shoulder, Peter kept eye contact as he pressed two fingers into his mouth and slicked them with saliva sloppily. Roman’s eyes went feverish and hot, his attention narrowing to Peter’s fingers. When Peter removed his slick fingers from his mouth, Roman licked at his lips and followed their journey between them until they disappeared from sight. Peter couldn’t bring himself to look away from the other man and made the rest of the journey through touch. The press of his fingers between Roman’s ass cheeks ratcheted the tension between them up, Roman’s face went intent and hungry, eyes focused on Peter as his body melted to the touch. Peter sucked in a breath when his first finger breached the other man and he felt the wolf surge forward, eager to dominate, to rut into the body beneath him who was so willing, loosening up around his finger.

Pulling his finger out he pressed two in with one smooth thrust. Roman shuddered, his leg around Peter’s side pulling him closer and clamping tighter around him.

Feeling the hot flesh around him, Peter breathed through the rush of red hot desire which shot through his blood. His hands were careful, but his actions became more insistent, more forceful and Roman took it like he was born to. When he brushed the pads of his fingers over the small mound of his prostate, Roman’s mouth fell open around a cry before his eyes slitted open and he growled at Peter to fuck him.

Hesitating, just for a second as he felt the still tight clamp of Roman’s ass around his fingers, Peter considered denying them both for a moment more so he could stretch him out carefully and do this properly. He’d never fucked a man before, but he’d done a girl in Texas up the ass when the condom had broken and she hadn’t been on birth control. But tenderness wasn’t what they both needed now, maybe at another point, when they hadn’t spent the night hunting and killing, when their animals weren’t so close to the surface, they could be tender with each other, but for now they needed the immediacy of contact, the edge of too much.

Pulling his hand back, he spat a couple of times in his palm before slicking himself, mixing spit with the precome which was beading thickly from his head, before lining himself with the neat furl of Roman’s ass before either of them could think too much about it. His grip on his own dick was punishing, but necessary, if he let himself acknowledge what was happening, who was spread out beneath him, flushed and desperate to be fucked, he knew he’d finish this embarrassingly quickly and he didn’t want that, he wanted to press as close as he could to the other man, so close they became one, like it sometimes felt they were always meant to be.

Roman hissed when Peter pressed in, but a calm determination settled across his face and his breaths were forced into a steady rhythm and slowly, agonisingly slowly, his body relaxed and Peter could sink in deeper.

Roman pulled him down into a kiss and Peter went willingly, mouth moving hungrily over the other man’s, licking into him as they shared hot, damp breaths and swallowed the desperate noises that slipped from their throats.

When he bottomed out, seated fully in Roman, Peter pulled away from his mouth with gasp. Holding himself still and tense, he fought the orgasm which crept along his strained nerves. It felt good, it felt right and perfect and inhumanly tight. He could feel every minute shift of the other man as he adjusted to the intrusion as control returned, he felt the scrape of Roman’s nails across his skin in small, unconscious scratches as he willed his body to adjust, eyes squeezed shut and brow furrowed as he clung to Peter as though he was the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

Bowing forward again, Peter licked into Roman’s mouth and smiled into the kiss when the other man opened up to him, his grip turning fierce on him as he held them close together. Peter eased his hips back, feeling every part of his skin as it dragged against Roman’s like it was hard-wired to pleasure. When he thrust back in again, it shocked a breath out of both of them and knocked their teeth together. Their kiss didn’t break, though it was sloppy with saliva and panting breaths.

Peter collapsed forward onto his hand by Roman’s head and he shifted to his elbow, bowing closer to the other man and curled his arm beneath Roman’s head, holding him up and cradling him in the bend of his arm. His other hand ran restlessly across Roman’s pale, beautiful form. He explored the peaks and valleys of his body, the whip-cord leanness which was so different to Peter’s own bulk. When Peter ran his nails across his skin, Roman arched into the touch with a shudder and when he gripped him tight, tight enough to bruise, he seemed to melt into it. He was responsive and demanding beneath him, knowing what he wanted and unafraid to demand it, his body more eloquent than any of his smooth, charming words ever could be.

Trailing kisses across Roman’s cheek and down the long line of his neck which he arched back in offering as the sounds the kisses had blocked from escaping, poured from his lips. Peter felt a moment of possessive anger as he teethed at the thin skin of his throat. Snapping his hips forward, he felt how well Roman took it, baring his throat and pressing into the pounding thrusts like it was the most natural thing in the world. Peter had to breathe through the anger which came at the thought that someone had seen this before, that Roman had been undone like this under someone else’s hands.

His hand fisted in Roman’s hair and his grip on his hip turned punishing as he thrust quickly into the willing body who let out a mewl and quivered at the assault. The wolf wanted to howl, it wanted to sink its teeth into the throat beneath his lips and force his submission, his devotion as he fucked any memory of the others out of him.

Pulling back with a gasp, Peter slowed his thrusts a little and looked down at the man in his hold. Roman’s eyes were wide and shocked under the assault, but hazy with desire as his mouth lay open and limp around the sounds which poured out of him as he gave himself over to it entirely. There was a kind of desperate look in his eyes when he looked up at Peter, his face flushed and sweaty as his chest heaved. Peter felt the way the muscles of his leg over his shoulder twitched and jerked as he edged towards an orgasm that seemed just out of reach.

Lowering his head to Roman’s chest, Peter trailed his tongue over the sweat which glistened on his skin, mouthing at the soft, pale skin and the hot flush of arousal which painted itself across his skin. Tonguing his nipple, he felt Roman twitch as the sounds became cut off and breathless, as though the pleasure had stolen the sound from his lips as his body struggled to not fall apart. Mouthing at the soft pad of muscle and flesh over his breast, Peter closed his eyes and sunk his teeth deep into the skin before he could second guess himself. Above him, Roman let out a howl and his hands scrambled for purchase on Peter as his body tightened impossibly around him. Peter came with a growl into the flesh between his teeth, his orgasm ripping through him and leaving him raw and shuddering with over-stimulation as shockwaves of pleasure raced through him.

Roman pulled him up towards his mouth and Peter went willingly, tasting blood in his mouth as he kissed hungrily. Roman licking into his mouth and struggling to breath as he clawed at him as he forced his softening dick forward into the unbelievably tight grip of the other man. Pulling away from Roman’s mouth, Peter nudged Roman’s mouth towards his shoulder and said in a low, rough voice which had to force its way out through tight lungs.

“Do it.”

Roman sucked in a breath and his face spasmed with disbelief before Peter nudged him closer again and he gave in, sinking his teeth deep into the meat of Peter’s shoulder and groaning deep in his chest as he came across their stomachs with a full body shudder which seemed to never end.

They stayed like that for an endless moment, bodies wrapped around each other as Roman licked lazily at the bite on Peter’s shoulder, the occasional shudder running through his body. Peter nuzzled into his hair and breathed in the smell of them as the sweat cooled on his body and he regained control of his limbs. When his dick slipped out of Roman’s ass, Peter pulled away reluctantly and eased himself down onto the ground beside Roman, though everything in him screamed at him to stay there, buried deep in the upir, sharing breath and warmth on the hard floor.

They lay side by side, like they had in a hundred dreams, staring up at the bright ceiling as they each caught their breath.

“Shee-it.” Roman said, voice gravel rough. Peter blinked at the light and felt his body shake with laughter.

“Shee-it.” he replied, rolling his head against the ground to see the profile of the other man. Roman laughed too, the hard angles of his face softening and his laugh sounding sweet and awkward. His lips were red from abuse and saliva-slick blood, it looked good, he looked well fucked and heavy lidded as turned his head to look at Peter.

Shifting marginally closer to the other man, Peter reached a hand forward to lay it against Roman’s chest, running his fingers across his smooth skin absently enjoying the freedom of touch, toying with the cooling sweat and a smear of come under his fingertips. Now that he’d let himself touch, he didn't think he could make himself stop.

Roman’s expression was soft and heavy-lidded. The flush on his cheeks had faded from the raw burn of arousal it had been as he caught his breath and the room cooled them. Peter opened his mouth to say something but jerked in surprise when Roman’s phone let out a noise and vibrated across the ground beside his head. Roman tilted his head towards to noise and rolled onto his side and reached across Peter for it.

“Hello?” Roman said, lifting it to his ear but not pulling back. Peter touched his fingertips to Roman’s bare abdomen and considered the skin under his hands, eyes drifting to the smear of blood across his chest from his own bite mark which looked ugly and rough against the clean lines of Roman’s body. His own shoulder felt hot and sore but the feeling came with a flare of arousal he wasn’t sure what to think of. His head shot up when Roman pulled the phone away with a jerk and hissed at him.

“How the fuck did your cousin get my number?” he accused in a low voice.

“What?” Peter asked, but Roman was already handing him the phone. “Des?” he spoke into the phone tentatively and was immediately assaulted by Destiny’s sharp, barking voice.

“ _What the fuck have you stupid fucks done? I’ve had a bad feeling all night and haven't been able to reach you. You stupid fucks better get the fuck over here right the fuck now_.”

The call cut off with a beep and Peter pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the lock screen.

“The hell was that?” Roman asked, pulling away and rising from the ground slowly, moving gingerly. Peter followed suit, letting his eyes rove over the other man as they began to reorganise themselves.

“Destiny’s been trying to reach me, she had a bad feeling and knows somethings up.”

“You going to tell her? About turning and… killing them?” Roman asked quietly. Peter tied the knot of his towel tightly round his waist and busied himself with fixing the knot in place.

“I’ll have to.” he finally said, looking up and meeting Romans steady gaze.

“Let me shower and we’ll go. I'm not doing this with your come in my ass.” a flush was high on Roman’s cheeks and betrayed his blasé attitude. Peter laughed and let Roman see him cast a heated look over the taller man. Roman rolled his eyes and pursed his lips to fight a smile and made his way up the stairs. Peter heard him enter the bathroom and return to the landing a second later, looking up, he let out a laugh when his rumpled clothes rained down on him before Roman turned back to the bathroom, this time closing the door behind him.

 

By the time they got to Destiny’s apartment the afterglow had faded and the reality of the situation had returned. They were sedate as they climbed the stairs and paused outside the door.

“All in?” Roman asked adjusting Nadia in his arms. They’d already talked about it on the way over, they needed to have all the cards on the table or they’d be wasting their own time and Destiny’s. Peter nodded but didn’t lift his keys to the door yet. A childish part of him wanted to turn back and escape back to Roman’s place, where they could play with Nadia and lock the world out. There, it didn’t matter that he’d killed two people and had an upir’s bite on his shoulder. But he knew that would never happen, the dreams always came and with them, death and destruction. The wolf pressed against his skin and rumbled to be let out, to be unleashed on the white masks and slaughter until there was nothing left, until Roman and Nadia were safe and Destiny didn’t have to worry anymore.

A hand rested against his back and he glanced over at Roman who quirked his lips in an unhappy smiled. The keys jingled when he unlocked the door and the familiar groan of the wood sounded before the door was yanked fully open and Destiny stood in the doorway, her curls a wild halo around her face as her eyes darted between them before she stepped aside and jerked her head into the apartment.

“We’re not even going to talk about the fact you have a goddamn baby. What they hell did you do?” she started the moment the door closed on the hall. Then her eyes widened “Unless it has something to do with last night?” her wide eyes drifted towards Nadia and Roman as though fearful of what she might see if she looked closer.

“No, fuck.” Peter threw himself down onto the couch and Roman followed, “She’s Letha’s baby.” he explained, darting a look at Nadia as Roman settled her on his lap and busied himself with straightening her clothes in a nervous gesture.

Destiny took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seemingly searching for calm before crossing the apartment to stand in front of them, hands on her hips as she studied each of them.

“Tell me what the hell happened.” she said lowly. Roman shifted and Peter clenched his hands into fists on his knees. keeping his eyes on his hands he told her, starting from identifying the house to unpinning the grenade in the SUV.  

“You killed two people.” Destiny said at last, stepping back towards the shelf behind her and reached for the ornate knife she kept there. Peter kept his eyes on the point of contact between hand and knife.

“They were from the dreams.” he said, darting a look towards Destiny’s face before returning to the knife.

“I fucking told you!” Destiny exploded, knife coming forward to point at Peter, “I told you to stay away from them!” the knife wavered in the air but remained pointed towards him. The wolf growled in his chest, its hackles rising at the threat.

“Would you put the knife away! You're not going to use it.” he snapped, his fisted hands opening to press his fingers into his knees.

“I wouldn’t push it.” Destiny snarled, looking down at the knife as though only just realising she had it.

“They've killed at least six that we know about.” Roman spoke for the first time and Destiny looked at him, taking in the words and seemed to deflate.

“You’re not going to give this up, are you?” she asked Peter softly.

“We can’t.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” she snapped, before running a hand over her face and releasing a breath “And so am I.” she sighed.

“So you’re gonna help?” Peter asked, almost breathless with relief.

“Well I don’t see that I have any other choice under the circumstances.” she said, waving the knife vaguely at the trio on the couch before returning it to the shelf. She left the room and there was the sound of things being moved around in the next room. Roman and Peter shared a look before she re-entered the room with a book in her hands, she brushed dust from it absently as she crossed to the couch and perching on the arm, slipping her toes under Peter’s thigh as she started flipping through pages, her eyes pausing over the occasional passage.

In the quiet, Nadia let out a laugh and Peter and Roman shared a look, coming to an agreement. Roman licked his lips and cleared his throat gently.

“The dreams were clearest when we were together.”  he said to the room and licked his lips again.

Destiny’s head came up and her eyes darted between the two of them, meeting Peter’s with a lingering look before returning to the book.

“Okay,” she said softly, “I can use that.”

Her fingers flicked through the pages again, though this time a little faster. She came to a stop and her eyes moved purposefully across the dense text before closing it. Holding it between her palms, she let out a sigh and looked into the middle distance for a moment “That’ll have to do.” she said quietly before getting up off the arm of the couch and headed towards the bathroom.

“Come on.” she called over her shoulder. Peter stood and trailed behind her, lingering in the doorway of the room.

“The bathroom again?” he asked reluctantly.

“Yeah,” her voice came from the bathroom, “but this times a little different, you have to drown me.”

Turning back to Roman who was watching him from his seat on the couch, Peter shrugged helplessly at the other man and tried to look anything other than resigned and exhausted.

By the soft laugh Roman let out as he deposited Nadia gently on the couch, nestled into the corner, before rising he suspected it hadn’t worked.

 

Destiny set them to work fetching things as she ran the bath. Peter paused in the doorway and looked at her as Roman went on towards the kitchen. Her shoulders were slumped and she prepared the water with care and precision but it looked like her mind wasn’t on the job at hand. There was something shadowed in her gaze, a pinched look around her mouth and the smudge of shadows under her eyes just made it more striking.

Roman returned from the kitchen with the ice trays and handed him one wordlessly, his own eyes drifting into the bathroom to watch Destiny pour a sweet-smelling oil into the bath. Peter shared a look with Roman before they moved into the room, ice trays in hand.

“Have you done this before?” Roman asked, eyes fixed on the herbs Destiny was crushing between her fingers above the water, the small grains drifting down to sit on the water’s surface.

“I've read about it.” Destiny murmured as she nodded for Peter to start dumping the ice into the bath. The crack and rattle of the ice seemed loud in the room, the sound bouncing off the tiled surfaces loud and sudden over the rush of the water.

“Water connected me to whatever it was before,” Destiny continued, shutting the faucet off with a rattle of old pipes, “I need it inside me this time.”

“It almost killed you last time.” Peter reminded gently. Destiny sighed and darted a look towards him. Her expression was one he hadn’t seen on her often, it showed the burden she carried with her gift, the weight she bore that nobody else would ever really understand.

“Hand me whatever it is that touched them.” she said instead, holding her hand out towards him as her eyes drifted back towards the bath. Peter shifted, darting a look towards Roman before pulling the heavy hunting knife from his pocket.

Destiny held it with her fingertips, by the thick black handle, over the bath and considered it for a moment before letting it drop. It slipped through the water without a sound but landed against the bottom of the bath with an awkward, muted clatter.

“It's all about electrical impulses,” Destiny said, standing up from her perch on the edge of the bath and folded to her knees beside it “the circuit between us cannot be broken, you cannot let go. Whatever I do, you have to hold me under, I'll be fine, even if it doesn't look that way. You promise me?” she asked, voice stern and commanding as she looked at the water in front of her.

“Yeah.” Roman promised.

“Peter?” she prompted when he remained quiet.

Swallowing thickly, Peter nodded. “Okay.” he said, his voice sounding hoarse.

With a final deep breath, Destiny nodded to them and Peter moved his hands towards her, one on the back of her head and the other against her shoulder as Roman mirrored his position on her other side and together, they pushed her head under.

She went willingly at first and the quiet of the room seemed jarring with its normality as his fingers threaded into her hair. It felt like an eternity before her body began to struggle as she fought against their grip. Their hands shifted for better purchase and when Roman pressed his hand partly over Peter’s to force her head down, their fingers entwined and Peter felt a surge of strength move through him. They shared a look but their eyes were drawn back down to Destiny when abruptly, she went still in their hold.

Peter held his breath and stared down at her, the world stilling around them as they kept the connection, though they no longer had to struggle to keep her in the water.

It felt like his heart missed a beat when suddenly her immobile body surged back, away from the water and she emerged, gasping in deep lungful’s of breath as she collapsed backwards. He guided her back, reluctant to break contact with her, even though she was away from the water and the circuit didn’t need to be maintained. From the way Roman’s hands lingered on her, he suspected the upir was feeling similarly reluctant to let her go.

Peter passed her a towel and she pressed her face into it. Her wet curls clung to her skin and soaked her t-shirt as she struggled to catch her breath.

“They're looking for a child, one in particular, _The Slaughter of Innocence_ …?” she said, patting at her face. Peter and Roman shared a look over her head, the implications of the words settled like ice in their veins.

“How many more are they going to kill?” Peter asked, gently. Destiny frowned as she remembered, eyes squeezing shut.

“Photographs with babies, with something on their faces,” her hand gestured to her own face as she clutched her other one tightly into the towel in her lap, “like a membrane or…”

“A caul.” Roman said suddenly.

“What?” Peter looked up at him, Roman’s eyes were wide and his mouth had fallen open in surprise.

“A caul.” he repeated, “the girl was saying it as she was dying, I just didn't realise what it was.” his pale eyes darted from Peter to Destiny when she spoke.

“How do you know what that is?” she asked in a low, strained voice.

“Nadia was born with one.” Roman said on a breath, throat tight.

“They're after her.” Peter breathed. As if on cue, Nadia let out a grumble from the couch and Roman left the room without a backwards glance, pulled towards the baby as though possessed. Peter watched him go, his chest tight and the wolf prowling close to the surface as the new information rolled through his mind, circling each other and revealing more horror with each circuit through his head. Beside him, Destiny shivered and clutched the towel closer to her.

 

Nadia was fussy, her face squeezed up and small noises of discontent escaping when Roman stilled his pacing of the small apartment for longer than a second. Destiny was nodding off on the couch but jerked awake at every soft whine from the baby.

She’d told them everything she remembered from the vision, described the warehouse she’d found herself in, the town names and hanging images along red string, the shadows and weapons amidst the hanging plastic and the cold eyes of the man who’d sensed her and forced her back out of the vision.

It took some coaxing, but when she’d exhausted her memory, Peter got Destiny into her bed. She was asleep before he’d finished pulling her blanket up over her shoulder. Pressing a kiss against her forehead, Peter ran his fingers through his cousin’s hair and let out a weary sigh, guilt clawed at him and he wished he’d never gotten her involved, never loved her like the sister he never had. But some things can’t be changed, and the past was one of them.

He ached, right down through his bones, exhaustion clawed at him and the wolf pressed close to the surface, as tired and wired as he was.

Movement at the door drew Peters gaze away from his cousin and he lifted himself up as he looked towards Roman, who filled the doorway, Nadia nodding off against his shoulder as he swayed gently side to side as he watched Peter.

“She needs to go home.” Peter whispered, nodding towards the baby. Roman nodded and together they made their way quietly out of the house. Peter paused at the front door. Looking around the small apartment, his eyes lingered on the bedroom and felt his heart tug and the wolf rumbled and flicked its ears in agitation at leaving her unprotected. Closing the door, he whispered a prayer against the wood before turning away.

 

The drive back to Roman’s place was done in silence. Roman stared ahead at the road and kept his hands at ten and two on the wheel. The moment they got to the house, Roman lifted Nadia back into his arms and carried her gently into the house and up the stairs to his room. Peter trailed along behind them.

“We gotta finish this, you and me.” Roman said lowly, lowering himself to the edge of his bed, his daughter held against his chest, “We need to find the warehouse. What Destiny said, it’s gotta be the one near the river bend.” he murmured.

“And when do we do this?” Peter asked, studying Roman’s slumped shoulders and how his head bowed forward with exhaustion.

“Now.” Roman slurred and his head rolled forward before he jerked it back up.

“Roman, we haven’t slept.” Peter said, moving to sit next to him on the bed. Roman rocked with the motion of the bed and their sides pressed together.

“Gotta figure it out.” Roman murmured.

“We don't even know if they know about her.” Peter said gently, Roman shook his head sloppily.

“Can't risk it.”

“How’re you gonna fight them?” Peter prompted, leaning closer, catching Roman’s eye when he tilted his head to look at him “Gonna grab your battle-axe from above the fireplace? We need a plan.”

“Let me think on it for just a minute.”

“Okay.” Peter whispered as Roman dozed off, his head falling forward and his breathing going slow and deep “Tonight then, we'll go check out the warehouse and come up with a plan.” he smiled when Roman bobbed his head in a nod but showed no further sign of awareness.

Peter watched as Roman’s chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths. Gently, Peter nudged the taller man to lean back against the bed before lifting Nadia into his arms and cradling her to his chest.

Peter stood over his sleeping friend and watched the shadows that played across his pale skin. He looked flawless in the failing light. Shifting Nadia to his hip, Peter reached down and combed his fingers through Romans hair before letting his fingers trail along the hard lines of his sleeping face gently, lingering like a kiss against the other man’s lips. Pulling his hand back, Peter turned and exited the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him.

The nurse was in the anteroom of Nadia’s room, she stood up as Peter passed her into the baby’s bedroom and he felt her eyes on him as he lowered the sleeping girl into her crib. He touched her cheek and whispered a blessing before turning and striding out of the room.

“When Roman wakes up, tell him I'll call him.” he said to the nurse as he passed and didn’t wait for a response, just let himself out of the house.

 

He drove in silence to the warehouse near the river. The air smelt damp and sweet with rotting plants. Peter breathed it in, filling his lungs and steeling himself. Under his skin, the wolf howled for release but settled when he nudged at it in his mind.

The warehouse was dark and silent, the occasional light was dotted around the grounds like streetlights and he moved through the shadows between them into the main structure.

In the centre of the building was a series of spaces separated by large sheets of hanging plastic which warped and shifted the view, catching the light like frozen waterfalls and offering confused impressions of what lay beyond. It was how Destiny had described it, in one space names spread out across the ground and lines of string with hanging photographs showed babies hung above towns and white lines on the ground. Moving through there, he came to a line of black suits hung neatly in a line, the white masks hollow and sightless, waiting to be needed. The number of uniforms gave him pause, this wasn’t just one or two sickos, this was militant, organised. The realisation settled across his skin and as he moved past the ordinary office furniture arranged like an office, and past another like a war room from a movie, Peter understood what needed to be done.

The quiet pad of his steps was the only sound in the cavernous space but the wolf could feel they wasn’t alone, just beyond his sight, between the swaying sheets of plastic and the spotlights of illumination, people moved.

Pausing in the glow of one of those lights, Peter made a decision. With infinite care he stripped himself of his rings and necklaces, taking his time with each one and putting them in the pocket of his jacket in lieu of the silver bowl he’d used since he was a child.

Stripping his clothes, he closed his eyes and let himself think of Roman, of his smile and his laugh, of him shuddering for breath underneath him. He thought of Destiny, clever and conniving, deserving so much more than this world will ever give her, who had only shown him kindness when others, who would never understand the werewolf like Destiny did, had turned their backs on him when he hit maturity. Finally, he thought of Linda, sending a prayer out into the night for her he felt his throat tighten and the back of his eyes prickle. She’d never know what happened to him, none of them would. He knew, with a certainty which should have shocked him, that when he let the wolf out this time, it would be the last time. He wouldn’t be able to pull it back and the human would be lost within the animal. The bad moon called to him and raising his head, he took a deep breath in and let the wolf come forward.

The red dot that appeared on his chest stilled the turn, the wolf pressed close but not quite breaching the barrier of his flesh when the red dot was joined by more and out of the shadows, from between the opaque sheets of plastic, figures in black emerged with weapons trained on him. Peter had enough time to think _I knew it was militant_ and call on the wolf that couldn’t come fast enough before he felt the first bullet hit him.

 

There was gritty concrete under his bare feet and hard metal in strips across the back of his thighs and the centre of his back. He was seated, he realised after a moment of dizzying disorientation. The chair was cold and metal, to match the loop around his neck.

Peter frowned, trying to orientate himself. The air was cold and still, there was the rasp of metal over metal and the light flickered behind his eyes. When he swallowed he felt the press of hard metal in increments around his neck, shifting his head, he felt the contraption which circled his neck. It was a spiked collar, the points pressed close to his neck leaving no room for the wolf’s thicker neck if he tried to turn, he’d be impaled on the spikes the second he tried. There was the rattle of a chain behind him when he moved and he realised he was chained in place.

Breathing in a shaky, panicked breath he jerked when he felt the sharp press of a knife dragging down his chest. With that, he became aware of the series of hot, raw parallel lines below his collarbone. He could smell blood and there was a metallic tang in his dry throat.

Blinking open his eyes he looked past the big man in black in front of him towards the circle of candles which surrounded him, casting a warm, soft light around the bare concrete room, making the peeling and cracked paint on the walls look like shifting water.

There was another man in the room, standing just by the circle of candles and watching his companion work with a placid expression on his face.

“I can’t help wondering how you found us.” the fair-haired man said absently with a pleasant, warm voice when he saw Peter was awake. Peter looked up from between his matted fringe at him as the big man stepped back towards the candles.

“Hard not to follow the trail of bodies.” Peter rasped, throat raw, “the trailer park, the kid you tried to run over and then drowned. You must be very proud.” he twisted his face in a mocking smile and tried to swallow. The points of the collar pressed against his throat and he had to make himself swallow again, fighting against the instinctual fear of piercing his throat by accident.

“The boy on the tricycle,” the big one said, “that was you?” his hand continued moving a big knife along the whetstone, the scrape of metal over the stone dragging down Peter’s spine as it cut through the quiet room and seemed amplified against the concrete walls.

“How many more have you butchered?” Peter pressed, cutting a look between them.

“Too many.” the smaller man said softly. The big man spoke again.

“But that kid you thought you saved, his life was all that was required. If you hadn't interfered, his mom would still be alive.” the passage over the whetstone was sloppy and his voice was hard when he finished, “That’s on you.”

The fair man took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his eyes roving absently around the room, lingering on the circle of candles.

“But you found us, by the grace of god, that means we're close to completing our mission.” he said at last, warmth colouring his words and Peter watched as the big man’s shoulders straightened and his chin rose unconsciously at the smaller man’s words, the anger melting from his face.

“Slaughtering families and murdering children, that's your mission?” Peter sneered, feeling a coil of satisfaction when anger crept back across the big man’s face, but the smaller man only smiled sadly at him.

“We mourn every life we've taken.” he said kindly, “But it’s god’s will to save the souls of so many others.”

“I don’t know what fucking god you believe in, but you're a bunch of sick fucks.” Peter snapped, and the wolf howled in his mind. When he shifted, he felt the hard spikes against his throat and he had to will himself to calm down.

“They always say that about those that bring disruption.” the smaller man said placidly, “Noah for instance, and then it started raining.” he looked at Peter with a twinkle in his eye, as though he’d shared a witty rebuttal for their shared enjoyment. “Who sent you?” he asked.

“Why don’t you ask your god? It sounds like he's got all the answers.” Peter replied helpfully. The man’s face contorted.

“Where's the beast? The child you're protecting.” he demanded.

“I'm not telling you dick.” he bared his teeth, though the fair man looked unimpressed.

“Suffering, brings enlightenment.” he said simply, sharing a nod with the big man before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Left alone, the big man smiled at Peter and he could see the darkness behind his eyes which was nothing like the wolf behind his, or the upir behind Roman’s. This darkness was malignant, it was something he’d seen once or twice in his life, once in the elder Ivan as he sliced apart a mafia leader’s son, and once in the eyes of a vargulf who had taken over the body of a frightened fifteen-year-old girl.

“You've got miles to go.” the big man said absently, crossing the room to a small table in the corner. Peter watched his back and tested the restraints around his wrists, feeling the pull of cable ties digging into the skin of his wrist. “Quicksilver.” the man announced as he crossed back over to Peter “One of the few things that will kill a demon like you. I believe your people call it hydrargyrum.” he said as he produced a small dropper. Peter felt his entire body still, a chill that was apart from the icy air of the concrete room, settled into his blood. “Do you know how many thermometers I had to break to fill this thing?”

His flippant tone rang in Peter’s ears and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the small, innocuous dropper, a hundred stories he’d heard since his childhood about what quicksilver did to wolves.

“It’s got its own word in gypsy for the kind of pain it brings.” the big man said, his lips pulling into a smile which showed all the sadism and amusement he felt at the thought.

Peter’s body wanted to escape but he was trapped, not only be the bindings, but by the fear which consumed him as the big man hovered the dropper over Peter’s chest.

When the drop of mercurial silver liquid landed on the raw flesh of his cut, Peter’s mind whited out with agony. He could hear screaming, could smell burning flesh and could taste blood. His body seized with pain and the world swam dizzyingly. It was every turn he’d ever had, every injury he’d sustained in his whole life, boiled down to a pure, condensed agony which stopped the world and tore the ability to breath from his lungs.

Distantly, from a million miles away, he heard the big man murmur, “Hmm. I must have been thinking of a different word.” but then another drop fell in the line of cuts across his skin and Peter felt his throat tear from his scream as the pricks of the spiked collar around his neck pressed into him and he welcomed the end it would bring.

A life time later, when the big man stepped back to admire his work and Peter began to catch his breath, shaking so hard he thought he’d dislocate something before he regained a semblance of control over his body back.

There was the click of shoes against the concrete floor and Peter rolled blurry eyes towards the smaller man as he re-entered the room.

“Why are you willing to suffer to protect a child who could destroy us all?” he asked in the same, placid voice he’d used before he left, “Are you so far gone that you can't see what you’re doing? Unleashing hell on earth.” the man leant forward, bringing his face level with Peter’s “We both want the same thing, to stop the killing. But you hold the key. Tell me where I'll find the demon.” Peter blinked at him, each blink a struggle as his hearing drifted in and out as blood roared in his ears and a ringing noise rose and fell seemingly without reason. The man pulled back. “That gaze, blank and piteous as the sun, while all about it, the darkness drops in. But I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep…” he continued, speaking in a cultured eloquent manner. If he’d been a Romani, he’d have been a storyteller who weaved stories and legends into moving pictures behind their eyes, drawing them into the worlds he promised them, each story with a meaning, a moral lesson for the Roma children to live their lives by.

Peter moved his tongue to try and produced saliva he could swallow, to try and wash the blood from his mouth and the raw, torn feeling in his throat. The man stopped speaking and looked at him with a curious expression before turning to the big man, “Let’s give him time to sit with his thoughts.” he said, it sounded like it was coming from very far away and Peter’s vision greyed out before he even heard them leave the room.

 

Roman was back in his mind. he looked incredulous in the dirty room, standing tall with his hands in the pockets of his tailored pants as he looked around the room with curious indifference. As though feeling Peter's eyes on him, Roman-in-his-head turned to face him. “You need to wake up,” he said, in the same voice he’d say ‘ _I’m bored_ ’ or ‘ _pass the salt_ ’.

Peter blinked and Roman was closer, kneeling in front of him, pale eyes fixed on Peter, looking into him, past Peter and into the wolf. “You need to wake up.” he said, voice strong and clear.

Peter choked back blood as he woke in the empty room. The wolf pressed close and Peter didn’t bother pushing it back, letting the wolf’s will command his body, they became one as he forced every ounce of strength he could find into pulling the bindings around his wrists until the came apart. His head fell forward and he struggled to breathe and had to fight to keep his arms behind him when they felt like lead weights separate from his body that wanted to swing down uselessly by his sides.

He heard the distinctive, heavy tread of the big man as he returned. Peter forced himself not to react, to remain limp and still as though he was passed out. He kept still as he felt a meaty hand fist in his hair and pull his head back, it was only when he felt the prick of a blade against his throat that he opened his eyes and let the wolf surge forward. He felt it merge with the human and they existed together as one. He landed a fist into the big man’s kidney before he could realise what was happening, Peter knocked the hand with the knife away and heard it clatter to the floor as he forced his fist against the big man’s sternum, forcing the air from his lungs and making him stagger backwards a couple of steps.

Peter jumped to his feet, not knowing where he was getting the strength to stand but not caring as he reached behind his neck to the join of the metal collar and pulling it from around his neck just as the big man was regaining his equilibrium. He stood tall, his face contorting with rage as he looked at Peter before his eyes went wide in surprise and then blank when Peter threw the collar towards him, flicking it like a Frisbee, he felt a hollow, sick victory when it impaled itself deep into his forehead and the big man fell to the ground as blood slipped down his brow.

Throwing a dazed look around the bare concrete room, Peter saw his clothes piled up against one wall and staggered towards it. He had one thought, it called over the exhaustion and pain which made him clumsy and slow, over the sick feeling in his guts at the still man on the ground and over the howl of the wolf under his skin: he had to get to Roman and Nadia, had to get _home_.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! I'm so sorry about the wait, I meant to get this chapter done months ago but the real world butted in and then stole the inspiration away. but its done now, and here it is.  
> Thank you all so much for all the comments and kudos, they've all been so lovely. I'm so bad at replying to comments and thanking people. but know that I appreciate every one of them.  
> I hope you enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed writing this story, it was a very cathartic experience to rewrite this season and I'm very pleased with the outcome lol

Nikolai had liked Destiny well enough. He’d known her since she was a child and had appreciated the woman she became. For many years, she was the only Romani he saw, isolated from the rest of the community as he was.

But Nikolai had never really liked what she was. He was wary of her, of what she could see. He’d said one night, when he was a bottle deep in whiskey and struggling to hold himself upright in his chair. “Wolves have no need to know the future and outsiders should keep their nose out of a wolf’s business.” he’d looked at her through bleary eyes and slumped sideways onto the arm of the chair, cigarette still held between his fingers burning down to the butt.

Destiny had watched the ash of the cigarette as he dozed in his chair. As Romani, she’d been an outsider for most of her life. As a fortune teller, she was used to being apart from the rest of the clan, the future wasn’t for the Romani to know. But Nicholai and wolves were something apart from every world, they didn’t belong in any place and were outsiders from society.

Until that moment she hadn’t ever really thought about how their futures diverged from the regular, always bloodstained and violent, moving just outside the futures of the others in their lives.

They were hard to capture in her wandering seer mind, like catching smoke, always changing, always altering, acting on animal impulse even when they were in their human forms and pulled always towards the moon.

Nikolai didn’t trust her not to try and interfere, to try and capture some of the base power they felt from the moon. She had never really understood his possessive fear of his animal side, she supposed she never could. That it was something only a werewolf could ever really understand.

 

As she watched Roman pace his house, from kitchen to the bottom of the stairs to the window beside the couch and back to the kitchen, Destiny saw some of that strange, undefinable nature of the wolf in him. His future tasted different to Peters. There wasn’t the same prickle of something purely _animal_ like with Peter, but there was an unnamed, primal quality to him which Destiny supposed was the upir. His future was ever shifting, mercurial and hard to focus on without getting a headache.

As she bounced Nadia on her lap, she considered the glimpses of futures she could see, in all of them she could recognise the impression of Peter. A hundred lives spiralled in front of him, a hundred lives he had the potential to live and in every single one of them Peter was a part of it. Not always good, not always long, some shockingly short and violent leaving her with the bitter ash taste of tragedy on an almost molecular level, but always together.

She watched as Roman spoke into his phone again as he looked out the window, body turned slightly away from her as through to keep his voice for Peter alone as he left another voicemail. His eyes tracking the horizon as he spoke. He hung up and returned to his circuit of the house and the silence stretched familiar between them until they’d all reached a sort of meditative state of worry.

They both jumped when the front door banged open. Nadia let out a sleepy whine and twisted in Destiny’s arms, pulling her eyes down to the baby as she shushed her gently, rocking her slightly until she relaxed. When she stood up, Roman had met Peter as he staggered into the house. His blond head was bowed, and when Destiny stepped closer, she saw that Roman was cradling Peter's hands gently in his own. Nadia burbled happily at the sight of the two men but neither seemed to notice her or Destiny

 

Peter looked terrible, his skin pale and waxy-looking. His clothes, usually rumpled, hung off his body like he was a manikin that had been carelessly dressed. He was collapsed in on himself, shoulders curling forward as though he didn't have the strength to hold them up.

Roman said something Destiny didn't catch and when she stepped closer she saw the smear of red across Peter’s wrists and forearms. When Roman twisted them, she realised he was studying deep gouges in Peter’s flesh, circling his wrists, deeper on the outside edges. Roman’s fingertips were red with her cousin’s blood and she struggled to tear her eyes away, not noticing at first when Roman lifted one hand to touch trembling fingers to Peter’s throat, which he lifted his chin to reveal more fully to Roman’s inspection.

She didn’t know if it was the raw, red blotches which circled her cousins throat in measured increments, or the act of baring his throat to Roman which made her head spin and forced the air from her lungs.

The two of them seemed to be having an entire conversation without saying a single word as Romans fingers traced back and forth across the fragile skin of Peter’s neck. Abruptly, Roman pulled away, gesturing to the couch with an authoritative wave of his hand, like a general commanding troops, or, Destiny thought wryly, of a billionaire CEO who was used to being obeyed.

Peter swayed on his feet with Roman gone from his side. Destiny stepped aside and nodded towards the couch, as Roman moved into the downstairs bathroom and started opening cupboard

Peter followed their silent order, resting his hand gently on Destiny's arm as he passed. She could see stained concrete and smell stale water, a bare bulb above her swayed. There was a collar with nails and the smell of blood. It rushed through her system, jet-fuel through her veins and the vision of the collars nails embedded in the high brow of a stranger lingered in her mind's’ eye.

“Oh, Peter.” she breathed.

He looked at her with haunted eyes. She wished she could fold him into his arms and kiss it better like she had when they were kids. She wished he was the same little boy she’d adored before he understood what it was to be gadje. So much time had passed since they’d played in the woods and between the cars of their youth and so much had happened to the both of them. They would never be those children again and it felt like grief in her chest to realise it.

Roman returned with a first aid kid and they set about patching Peter up, dabbing antiseptic into the open injuries and wrapping his ribs firmly. Destiny found her eyes lingering on the blooming bruises which discoloured his skin and were barely even forming yet. Roman touched him with care, long, pale fingers barely leaving Peter’s skin but never hurting, a gentleness and a care which Destiny had never believed an upir was capable of.

She couldn’t help flicking her eyes away. Intimacy was never something she’d shied away from, sex was natural, bodies even more so. She’d made money since she was a teenager selling both in one way or another and had grown up in a community that understood that. But the strange connection between the two men seemed too private to dismiss with a glance, it reminded her too strongly of the way their futures entwined so dizzyingly in her mind.

Roman pulled away, perching on the edge of the coffee table in front of Peter’s slumped form on the couch. Destiny’s eye was drawn to the way Roman held his hand stiffly by his side, clenching and unclenching his fist.

“What happened?” Roman asked, licking his lips as though he could taste the gravel in his voice.

Peter looked between them, touching the neat white bandages which circled his wrists.

“I went to the warehouse, it was like they were expecting me.” he admitted after a moment's hesitation.

Roman cursed and stood up. Peter and Destiny watched as he strode across the open space to the kitchen and jerked the door of the fridge open with a rattle of bottles in the shelves. He pulled out a glass vial and uncorked it as he closed the door and circled around the island bench, leaning against it as he took a swallow.

Nadia burbled happily when Peter shifted on the couch as though to get up and Destiny rested a hand on his bare arm to keep him seated. He shot her a glance but sunk back into the couch, but his attention remained on Roman.

“What is that stuff?” he asked curious and with the timbre to his voice which suggested it was a question he'd been meaning to ask but hadn't found the time.

Roman looked down at the viscous fluid in the vial and sloshed it around so it lapped against the edges.

“Who the hell knows.” he said with a shrug, lifting it to his lips and taking a deep swallow. When he lowered it, his eyes stayed on the bottle. “but it helps.” he said lowly, looking towards Peter.

“Yeah?” Peter asked, sounding more hopeful and younger than Destiny had heard in a long time, though the sadness which stained his heart still lingered and she held Nadia closer to her as though her innocence could distract Destiny from what she’d always been able to see.

“It’s like living off oatmeal. just oatmeal, no sugar or anything. it’s boring as fuck but it does the job.” Roman continued as he screwed the lid back on the bottle and circled the bench to return it to the fridge, closing the door and leaning against it, arms crossing over his chest as his eyes met Peters across the room.

“It’s enough?” Peter asked.

“Yeah.” Roman said, low and quiet, “It makes it simmer down to a craving, like wanting a big hunk of steak but all the butchers are out. Annoying as fuck, but I’ll live.”

“Reckon that’s ever happened? Can a butcher’s even run out of steak?” Peter asked absently, scratching at his beard and shifting on the couch to find a position that didn’t hurt.

“Statistically, yeah. It has to have happened at some point in history. Probably lots.” Roman said with a shrug, pushing off from the fridge and returned to the coffee table, sitting on the edge and leaning forward, as though he couldn’t stay away from Peter. Destiny blinked at the two men, eyes darting between them.

“Can it even be called a butcher's if there's no steak in the place?”

“There’s more types of meat than ribeye. They butcher all kinds of animals-”

“Guys,” Destiny cut in, “Off topic much?”

Two pairs of eyes snapped to her, surprised, as though they'd forgotten she was there. She wouldn't have been surprised if they had. Caught up in each other’s orbit. They frightened her sometimes.

She wondered when that happened, when the wolf and upir became so entangled, against all of history and culture telling them they never could.

“How did you not get killed?” Roman asked, levity of moments before gone and replaced with a low seriousness. Peter shot him a look and his hand twitched in his lap.

“They caught me mid-change, I was vulnerable and they got the jump on me.”

Destiny sucked in a breath and she saw a muscle in Roman’s jaw jump.

“Peter…” her voice sounded strangled. Peter’s eyes flicked towards her before slipping away. “How many times have you turned against the moon?” she asked lowly. She’d been concerned, had known he’d been struggling with the wolf and it was closer to the surface than it should be, than it used to be. It was so hard to look at him and see the vargulf getting close, he seemed so human to her, so much like the Peter she’d always known and it was easy to ignore the slips and change in behaviour. He was a gypsy and a wolf, there’d always been a wildness about him. In retrospect, it was obvious it was heightened now, that he wasn't the same boy that had moved to Hemlock Grove two years ago, wasn't even the same boy that had left a year ago. His body was deteriorating and the wolf was at the fore now.

She’d been reading about it, without accepting what she knew in her heart, she’d been preparing. Had read accounts of vargulfs, researched cures and chances of hope, all of it had left her even more desperate for it not to be true. Peter’s silence and Roman’s darting eyes were answer enough.

“You’re beyond my powers to help you now,” she whispered, feeling tears clog her throat as she studied his beaten form. He met her eyes and she saw how exhausted he was, but she also saw how turning against the moon had become an option he was prepared to make if the situation warranted it, whereas before, it had been a forbidden thing. No matter how it started, no matter how he justified it to her and himself, he was already becoming the vargulf.

“The gift you were given has been perverted.” she said at last. She didn’t know why she called it a gift; though she knew Nikolai, and in his own way Peter, saw it that way. Reaching across the distance between them she rested her hand on his arm. “If you call on the wolf again, you will belong to him. Unable to return.”

“I know.” Peter breathed into the silence.

Destiny saw a muscle in Roman’s jaw twitch and his pale eyes widened before his mouth well open and loose as he realised the implications of that. Destiny almost felt sorry for him as she watched the horror and pain unfold in his mind and he looked at Peter with wounded eyes as he understood that it had been a suicide mission last night. Peter had gone to the warehouse with no plan beyond setting the vargulf on the masked figures and sacrificing himself for Roman and his daughter.

Pain and shock were just shifting into anger when there was the sound of breaking glass. Roman’s head whipped around, his head angled as though listening to something Destiny couldn’t hear. His eyes snapped back to the couch.

“Go to the baby’s room,” he commanded, low but commanding, “lock yourselves in. Right now. Do it!”

Destiny scrambled up, cradling Nadia in her arms. When she passed the kitchen counter, she grabbed one of the knives in the block and clutched it tightly, the solid handle reassuring in her tight squeeze. Peter and Roman were moving, their steps silent through house, their actions synchronised and heads cocked as they listened though they both moved around Destiny, wordlessly herding her and the baby to the stairs.

From the balcony, Destiny paused long enough to see the fleeting shadows of figures moving through the house. She’d lost sight of Roman and Peter by the time she made it to the balcony edge and she tries not to let that unsettle her. These weren’t boys, weren’t her young cousin or the rich kid, they were wolf and gypsy and upir, though they tried to hide it from her, this wasn’t their first fight, violence wasn’t foreign to them.

They were fighting to save the baby in her arms and they would do anything to protect her. With one more fleeting glimpse of an armed, dark figure, and the first sounds of fighting breaking out below her, Destiny moved into the antechamber of Nadia’s bedroom, closing the heavy security door and hearing the rush of silence as the house beyond was sealed off.

Nadia watched her curiously from her cot when she placed her down in it. Her big, blue eyes followed Destiny as she paced a tight circle in the centre of the small, plain room.

Being cut off from everything that was happening made her mind whirl with a hundred possible outcomes of the fight below, each more horrific than the last until she lost track of time and had no idea how long they’d been there.

She felt cornered, caged up with nowhere to go. Her gypsy heart screamed to run, to take the baby and reach the horizon, as though refuge would be found there. The problem with being a seer, is that she knew better than anyone that the horizon offered no sanctuary, and no matter how her people chased it, they’d never catch it.

Squaring her shoulders, Destiny planted herself between the door and the crib. Adjusting her grip on the knife, she poured her anxieties and her fears into the blade, twisting prayers for strength into the wooden handle and counted her breaths.

She could feel the darkness rushing towards them, rising from the ground floor and slipping closer to where they hid. She looked back at Nadia and saw her staring unblinkingly at the doorway, her wide eyes bright and a smile splitting her rosy features.

Destiny had tried not to look into Nadia’s future, she was too young to have anything easily discerned and Destiny could feel the headache she got when she looked too deeply at Roman or Peter’s futures prickle behind her eyes. Whatever Nadia was, she was in line with the Godfrey lineage. Knowing that made the avid look on the toddler's face disconcerting.

The darkness beyond the room rushed forward, so clear in Destiny’s mind it almost took form, she could see the shadow of a man rushing closer as she heard a muffled impact with the antechamber door.

Her grip on the knife shifted and she set her jaw. Turning, she crossed to Nadia and pressed a kiss and a blessing into her hair before leaving the bedroom and closing the door firmly behind her. Faced with the door out of the antechamber, Destiny didn’t let herself assess the hundred outcomes which stemmed out from her next decision and instead, cracked open the door enough to slip out, pulling it shut behind her until she heard the electronic beep of the lock engaging and faced the man coming at her.

When Destiny was twelve years old she was jumped by some older boys on her way home from school. They hadn’t been in town that long, it was some podunk town somewhere in the Midwest, just like a hundred others, full of narrow-minded people who looked at a gypsy and saw a thief, a liar and a criminal. Even in a twelve-year-old girl in a dress too big for her and bangles around her wrists.

They’d pushed her around, pulling her hair and knocking her to the ground and kicked dirt in her face as they taunted her and called her names. When a passing motorist had stopped, they’d run away. Terrified, Destiny had run too, sobbing with skinned knees and raw palms, dirt in her throat and bruises already forming, she’d run home.

What had scared her most that day wasn’t the beating or the feeble threats the boys had shouted at her, no, what scared her the most was what she’d seen in them. At thirteen and fourteen years old those boys had been filled with desire, anger and fear. it had boiled in the pubescent blood and images had taken root deep in their minds.  She doubted they knew what they would have done if he motorist hadn’t stopped, but Destiny had.

That night they’d left town, Destiny had stayed with the family elder of their clan and was introduced to the clan seer.  The rest of the Romani never treated her the same again.

After that first introduction to the violence of the world, Destiny had been no stranger to it. As a woman travelling alone she'd had to defend herself more than most people care to realise, as an outsider who never fit in anywhere, violence and violent people surrounded her.

Unlike Peter who called on the wolf’s savagery, Destiny fought with only her will to survive keeping her going. She knocks the masked man in front of her against the wall, a blow across the face sent him to the ground and a kick to the head made him stay there. In the second of imbalance, she was grabbed from behind and struggled against the hold, planting herself and writhing in their grip to get leverage.

She fights smart. It’s her one advantage against men bigger and stronger than her. A slash of the knife down his forearm was enough to loosen his hold on her and she spun and knocked her forehead against his nose so he staggered back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Peter ascend the stairs, knocking another figure over the banister as he went.

For a second, the world stilled when he jerked and Destiny froze when she saw the dark bolt sticking out of him, looking unnatural and incongruous jutting out of his frame. He jerked again when a second bolt joined the first and time rushed back in.

She’s grabbed from behind before she could get to him, but she saw him fall. His eyes wide with surprise and his body dropped as though his control over it had been switched off.

The man holding her lost his grip when she lashed out and she scrambled to get to Peter in the seconds her attacker is distracted, but he’s better prepared for a fight now, no longer surprised by the unexpected opponent and he has her on the ground in seconds with a hard hit to the face which sends the world spinning.

Destiny acted on instinct entwined with training when she adjusted her grip on the knife she’s still holding and thrusted up in the moment of opportunity his groin. She caught a glimpse of Peter’s slumped form at the top of the stairs as she scrambled back from the man as he falls, Destiny doesn't have time to get back up or get her bearings before another man has her.

It’s more wrestling than fighting when he climbs on top of her, his big frame forcing her down against the carpet and his large hands closing around her throat, unmoved by her clawing hands, his face too protected to give her a good target for her nails.

The world greyed from the edges and her head throbbed as the taste of blood bloomed on her tongue before suddenly the weight is gone and oxygen rushed into her seizing lungs and for a second she thinks she’s died.

A hand grabbed her arm and she feebly batted it away until she recognised Roman’s pale face swimming before her eyes. He was shouting something she couldn't hear over the ringing in her ears but his eyes were flicking from Destiny to a flurry of movement beside her.

Turning her head, she saw the huge, frightening figure of Peter’s wolf as it tore into the throat of the masked man that had attacked Destiny. It let out a ferocious growl, its muzzle wet with blood before bounding over the bodies and taking a flying leap over the banister. In the seconds it took for him to disappear from sight Destiny saw her life with her cousin, from the dark-haired toddler racing between the cars and bare earth to the man he’d become, hunches under the weight of the world their live together spread through her in a rush and she wanted to sob and scream at the unfairness of it.

They heard him land and the sounds of battle amplified. Roman helped her to her feet and together they stumbled into Nadia’s room, Destiny only noticing as they passed that her attackers had managed to destroy the electronic security and would have made it into the room in minutes.

Roman rushed through the antechamber and into the bedroom towards his daughter, blood around his mouth and smeared across his chin, looking bold and red against his pale skin. He lifted Nadia from her crib and cradled her to him. Destiny moved into the room and watched as he closed his eyes and breathed her in. She couldn’t look away as he pressed a kiss to her forehead and whispered how much he loved her, his large hands cradling her gently, his knuckles raw and bloody. A monster, with the signs of his nature in bold red across his porcelain skin.

The moment was broken when a low growl came from the doorway. Peter’s wolf was large and imposing, filling the doorway, its black fur bristling.

“Why isn't he changing back?” Roman asked, voice high and desperate as he darted a look towards her.

“He can't.” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears and fixed on the vargulf that was once Peter. There was no recognition in his eyes, only hunger and fury.

She could feel her heart stuttering in her chest. The ache of grief coming over her in force. There would be nobody to bury because the wolf had consumed them. It tore through her with the viciousness of teeth that she would die at her beloved cousin’s blind animal hunger, and he would never know.

It was perhaps a mercy, a blessing that he wouldn’t and a detached part of her brain took comfort in knowing that he would never know the guilt of what he had done, the wolf taking that as well as his humanity.

“Vargulf.” Roman breathed beside her and then, “Stay back.” he commanded, pressing Nadia into her arms and nudging them towards the corner of the room before turning back to the vargulf.

Destiny clutched Nadia to her chest, cradling her head in one hand and turned her face away from the scene in front of them, unable to look away herself, eyes fixed on the upir and vargulf squaring off in the small room and breathed a prayer into the room.

“Peter, it's me,” Roman said, leaning forward and making eye contact with the vargulf as though he could find Peter somewhere in there, “don't do this,” he begged in a low, smooth voice.

Peter growled, his sharp teeth bared.

Roman never really understood the danger of the vargulf, hadn’t grasped it even after the events of their senior year. Some part of him believed the human was still in there, that the madness of the wolf didn’t corrode the humanity entirely. He hadn’t been raised knowing about these things and that made it harder to accept that the human was no longer in there. “Peter.” he said, stronger this time as he stepped closer.

Destiny’s throat felt tight and she clutched Nadia to her chest. “Please, Peter.” she whispered, the words barely heard over growl of the wolf.

The vargulf lunged with a roar which chilled her to her very core and a cry ripped from her throat. Roman caught it by the muzzle, his arms shook with the effort of restraining him. Baring his own teeth, Roman let out a growl of his own and forced it back. She saw blood drip down Roman’s wrists as he shifted his hold, his fingers torn open as he gripped the vargulf’s jaw and pulled it open until it let out a whine and its attack shifted with urgency, and an animal need to survive.

Roman keeps pulling the jaw open, forcing it open beyond the hinge of its jaw, Roman’s shoulders strained against the wolf’s struggles.

“You're killing him!” Destiny shouted over the cries of the wolf, her voice high and hysterical but unable to tear her eyes away from the scene in front of her.

The jaw came apart with a wet rearing sound and the popping noise of ligaments snapping and bones coming apart. Destiny staggered back, Nadia clutched to her chest so she couldn’t see the gore going on in her bedroom. But Destiny couldn’t look away, eyes fixed on the way fur, skin and tissue tore apart as Roman’s hands grew slick with blood, splashing across his face and mixing with the dried blood of the soldiers.

The wolf’s fighting stilled and she watched as Roman peered inside, eyes intent before he thrust a hand into the wet, hot insides.

Destiny let out a cry, almost dropping Nadia when a hand from within gripped Roman’s and slowly, like a horrific birth, Roman pulls Peter out of the gaping mouth.

He was shaking and broken, slick with blood, huddled on the floor, quivering and as weak as a newborn. But he was _there,_ in human form as the husk of the vargulf lay dumped where Roman had dropped it.

That wasn’t meant to happen, from all her readings and the stories of the gypsies, it wasn’t possible.

Her eyes moved between Peter’s shivering form and Roman who stood tall and imposing in the middle of the room, looking down at her cousin as though he was something beautiful.

The unreality of the moment, blood soaked and beyond legends and lore, frightened her more than the vargulf ever could. Things like this weren’t meant to happen, vargulfs and upirs weren't meant to be so entwined, so devoted to one another that one could reach into the literal belly of the beast and pull them out, away from death, away from madness, away from their own nature.

 

They moved Nadia’s crib and Peter into Roman’s room, the one place in the house untouched by the carnage of the fight. Roman rocked Nadia and hummed to her as she fell asleep as Destiny bathed Peter, wiping away the blood and gore of his strange birth. The injuries from the warehouse were gone, like after each moon. Each swipe of the cloth revealed more clean, unmarred skin and Destiny felt some of the sick fear inside her ease away.

When Nadia was sleeping peacefully, Roman joined Destiny in cleaning Peter. He perched on the edge of his bed and cradled Peter’s hand in his as he wiped each finger clean before moving up his hand, over his wrist and along his forearm, meticulously careful as he worked.

“Is he going to wake up?” Roman asked eventually, breaking the silence. He sounded young, like a little kid afraid of the dark and begging to be reassured.

“I don’t know.” she said, combing her fingers through Peter’s damp hair. Roman huffed in annoyance and when she flicked a glance towards him, he was frowning but his attention was fixed on Peter’s still face.

“There must be something we can do,” he said, “someone we can take him too.”

Destiny wondered how many times a Godfrey had been faced with something they couldn’t fix, that there was nobody they could throw money at to make the problem go away and make it all alright again.

“There’s no one, things like this don’t happen.” she told him, voice harder than she meant it to be. Peter and Roman had never understood how dangerous and strange the world they’d stumbled arrogantly into was. His face was paler than usual and he looked strained and exhausted, Destiny softened her voice. “This has never happened before, we’re flying blind.”

Roman nodded and they finished cleaning Peter in silence. Destiny looked away when Roman’s hands lingered on Peter’s chest, lying flat over his heart.

Destiny cradled her cousin in her arms when they had him dressed in a pair of Roman’s soft pyjama pants. Wrapping one arm around him in a hug, Destiny watched as Roman paced the room slowly, pausing on every other pass to look down at Nadia as she slept.

The quiet was broken when Peter jerked in Destiny’s arms, a cry tearing from his throat and his eyes snapped open. He clutched weakly at Destiny's arm, his fingers too weak to properly grip her. She stroked the skin under her hand in soothing circles and shushed him gently until he settled.

His eyes were darting around the room, only stilling when Roman stepped closer to the bed. His throat clicked as he worked it before he managed to rasp out, “It’s over?”

“Yeah.” Roman said, not breaking eye-contact with him until Peter nodded weakly and slumped back against Destiny.

She could feel his body relaxing and his breathing slowly eased as Roman stepped to the bedside and reached over to run his fingers through Peter’s dishevelled hair, a tender look flicking across his face, softening his hard features and making him look his age.

It was easy to forget they were both so young, one year out of high school and with more death, violence, betrayal and heartache than most people experienced in a lifetime.

The soft expression dissolved as he pulled his hand away and turned his pale, strange eyes to Destiny.

“You want a coffee?” he asked quietly.

Destiny smiled. “Add a splash of whiskey.”

 

0001010101010101

 

Peter woke slowly, his limbs leaden and aching in a way he remembered vaguely from his childhood, before his first turn, when he could still get sick like other kids.

Letting out a groan, he stretched his arms and legs until they shook and he slumped back against the soft, familiar smelling sheets he was cocooned in. Roman’s bedroom was mostly untouched by the carnage he remembered from before he’d shifted. Nadia’s cot had been moved into the room and he realised that was what had woken him. She was laying down, but letting out small whines as she shifted unhappily and fussed with the small soft bear she shared her cot with.

With a groan, Peter pulled himself up and steadied himself before making his way over to her. She stared up at him with her big, bright eyes and her soft face twisted into a smile as she let out a gurgle which might have been a laugh. Peter smiled, huffing a laugh and reached a hand down to hold the one she offered up to him.

He knew he was clean, had a vague memory of Destiny and Roman cleaning him up and he could smell Roman’s soap on his skin, but he couldn’t help a quiet sense of surprise when the hand Nadia grabbed hold of was clean and human.

The wolf was under his skin, he could feel it, but it lacked the wildness of the last few weeks. It was different to before he’d turned against the moon too, more present, but he no longer felt like he was going to tear out of his skin at the slightest provocation. Settled, he thought as he lifted Nadia into his arms when she became restless again. There was a sort of disconnect under his skin, separate from the wolf, like he was wrapped in cotton-wool and hadn’t properly woken up.

Nadia cuddled into him, settling her head against his shoulder. He turned his face into her soft hair, breathing her scent in, letting it fill him up. The knowledge that she was safe was like a bonfire in his chest and he pressed a kiss onto her crown.

Behind his eyes, he could still see the horror of the last few weeks, the violence and destruction. He could taste blood and ashes, could smell cold concrete, fire and death, and feel the wild dominance of the vargulf taking him over. But for the moment, with Letha’s daughter safe in his arms, it was all worth it.

Stepping out into the hall, Peter heard movement on the ground floor and crossed to the balcony to look down. Destiny was on her hands and knees, bright yellow gloves cartoonish and out of place, the fingers looked brown with blood as she scrubbed at the smears of blood across the floor.

Peter’s eyes were drawn to the front door when it opened and Roman strode in, crossing the room with purpose towards what Peter now realised was a body beside the couch. Destiny looked up from her scrubbing as he passed but he didn’t spare her a glance.

He bent and lifted the figure with a grunt and turned towards the door. When he glanced up at the balcony and saw Peter watching him, his steps faltered and his pale eyes widened. Their eyes met, and Peter felt the chaos of the room melt away, the smell of blood and detergent was replaced by the cold, crisp smell of fresh ice.

“Peter!” Destiny’s cry broke into his mind and he tore his eyes away from the upir and looked at his cousin. She was scrambling up from the floor, a smile spreading across her face. “Are you okay? How do you feel?” she moved as though she was going to move towards him but faltered when her toe nudged a bucket of soapy water.

Casting an eye around the usually immaculate house, Peter wondered how long he’d been out. While the place was still obviously in disarray, there was no broken furniture or any bodies beside the one Roman was holding in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder. The pool of blood Destiny was cleaning was one of many, but the kitchen area was conspicuously clean.

“Peter?” Destiny prompted when he hadn’t replied, more cautious this time. Peter looked back at her, bouncing Nadia in his arms and smiled at the two below him.

“I’m fine. A bit sore.”

His eyes were drawn again to Roman who was looking up at him with an expression Peter couldn’t name.

Nadia let out a whine in his arms and he tore his eyes away from Roman to sooth her, only glancing up when Roman’s footsteps crossed to the front door and he hefted the weight over his shoulder before disappearing from view.

Peter descended the steps quickly, his bare feet slapping against the polished wood. Nadia let out another whine and snuggled closer to his chest when he stepped out into the bitter cold.

There was a van backed up as close to the front door as it could get and Roman was shoving the unwieldy limbs of the man in black on top of bodies already there. Roman grunted when he finally got the body to stay amidst the pile of limbs and backed away.

When he saw Peter, he crossed to them with two long steps. Pressing against Peter’s side, he blocked the wind and when he reached across to cradle Nadia’s head in one large hand in greeting, Peter felt enclosed in his warmth and he breathed in the scent of him.

“What are you going to do with them?” Peter asked, looking around Roman to the open doors of the van and the slumped forms within.

Roman moved away, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked into the van as well.

“I’ll dispose of them at the institute.”

“Can I help?” Peter asked.

Roman shook his head jerkily and moved another step away.

“It’ll be easier on my own. Price will help when I get there, it’ll draw less attention.” his eyes slipped back towards Peter. There was tension around his eyes and Peter wanted to draw him closer, to close the distance between them and settle the strange disconnect that sat under his skin.

Peter nodded and stepped away from the last of Roman’s warmth and moved back towards the entrance of the house.

Roman closed the van doors with a careless slam, as though unconcerned by possibly prying eyes or the content. Turning the lock, he glanced back at Peter, something wild and needy flashed through his pale eyes before they shuttered and he moved around the van to climb into the driver’s seat.

Peter closed the front door when the tail lights flicked on. Holding Nadia close, his eyes were drawn to Destiny, who was back on her knees and had started cleaning again, though her attention was on Peter.

“How do you feel?” she asked, her eyes flicking down to her gloved hand as she worked.

Peter wondered how to answer that. The wolf had taken over, had consumed the human and in that moment, Peter had welcomed it, welcomed it as a change from the torment of the last year, of the horror which surrounded him. He’d given himself over to it and his inevitable death and now he was awake on a cold, crisp winter day with the wolf seemingly settled under his skin and some pull under his skin to be near the upir that had just left.

“I’m not sure.” he said at last.

Destiny gave him a long, assessing look before nodding.

“Help me out, gloves are in the kitchen.”

 

Nadia was dozing in her baby carrier on the table as Destiny and Peter set to work scrubbing any sign of violence out of the building.

The smell of the bleach was harsh and astringent. It covered the thick, metallic scent of dried blood and made Peter light-headed and dizzy as he worked.

They were efficient, working together mostly in silence, the only break from the tough work was when he rose to check on Nadia, get her some food or change her diaper.

He lost track of time and when he rested back on his heels and pulled off his gloves to rub at his lower back absently as he cast a critical eye around the house to find it clean, the sun had long since set.

His spine popped when he stretched his arms over his head and he groaned at the way his tired muscles ached, they always did after the change, but with the additional labour he felt far older than his years.

“You can stay here.” Peter said as he climbed to his feet.

Destiny stood up, pulling the large yellow gloves from her hands with a snap of rubber.

“I can’t…” her words faltered and her eyes shifted around the room, now spotlessly clean, though a little sparser than it had been, “I can’t stay here.” she finished, sounding strained.

Looking at her, Peter saw how pale she was, her eyes a little wider than normal and there was a slight tremble in her hands Peter had never witnessed before. Destiny was one of the strongest people he’d ever known, had envied her that occasionally, but the previous night had clearly been too much for her. She stood proud and strong, hadn’t once stumbled or cracked as they cleaned up the aftermath of the fight, has scrubbed blood from her hands and the floor with a single-minded focus. Anyone who didn’t know her as well as him, might not see how it was affecting her, but it was.

“I’ll come with you, you shouldn’t be alone-”

“No.” her curls bounced when she shook her head, “No, stay here.” her eyes flicked behind him and what she saw seemed to settle her a little. When she nodded again and smiled, it looked a little less forced.

Peter turned around and saw Roman pushing through the front door, already shrugging out of his coat. As though feeling their eyes on him, he looked towards them as he flung his coat over the bannister. His eyes found Peter with that expression the gypsy couldn’t quite name, but could feel. He ached to be near the other man, to touch him and know he was real, as though only then, when he could lay a hand on him, Peter would be grounded.

He hadn’t expected to ever be human again. Seriously injured and on the losing side of a battle against soldiers with military grade weapons, Peter had turned to save Destiny. With the one clear, final thought being that it wouldn’t matter if he never came back, if the vargulf took him over, if only he could save the three people that mattered most to him besides his mom.

Destiny pulled on her coat and lifted the strap of her bag, pulling Peter’s focus back to her. She smiled and murmured a blessing when she bowed to kiss Nadia’s forehead before turning purposely towards the door, running her cool fingers through the mess of Peter’s hair as she passed, offering him a smile, before crossing to Roman and squeezing his shoulder wordlessly as she passed.

A tense, strained second passed when Destiny closed the door behind her, and they listened as her steps moved away, followed by the groan of metal as the car door opened and then closed with a bang, before her engine came to life.

Roman’s eyes made a sweeping inspection of the house, tilting his head subtly as he sniffed the air as though hunting for any trace of the blood under the sharp smell of the bleach. Seemingly satisfied, his eyes turned to Peter.

There was a wildness to Roman’s eyes which Peter had only seen glimpses of before in the thirst. It was a drive for violence and an equal fear of that desire.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked. his own body ached but he’d at least slept most of the day. Roman had been working, elbow deep in the very thing he forbid himself. His daughter had been hunted and he’d slaughtered men last night and gone against a vargulf which had been his friend. Studying his pale, exhausted face, Peter could see the strain it was having on him.

Instead of answering, Roman made a noncommittal noise and ran his fingers roughly through his hair and studied Peter.

It was always strange to be the focus of a boy like Roman. From the moment they’d met, he’d endured it. He was used to curiosity and a certain amount of fascination from strangers as a gypsy who often moved through small towns, but Roman had watched him with all that and more, a darker, somehow deeper, inspection than he’d ever had to endure before, like he would cut you open to see to the very heart of you.

When they’d met, it had unnerved him. And then it had thrilled and excited him. Now he wanted to bask in it.

Roman crossed the space between them and sunk, wordlessly, to his knees at Peter’s feet. He didn’t look up as he leaned forward and buried his face in Peter’s stomach, his strong arms wrapping around his waist and Peter could feel the pull on his shirt when he fisted his hands in the fabric at Peter’s back.

Instinctively, Peter cradled the back of Romans head in one hand, threading his fingers through the soft blond hair and held him close, feeling his breaths hot and damp against his stomach. He could feel fine tremors running through Romans body and his muscles were tense and strained as he held himself still.

“You can’t leave me.” Roman said, voice muffled against his skin, but low and furious. He pulled back, tilting his head up to stare at Peter with pale, flashing eyes. “Not again. I won’t let you.”

Looking into his eyes, Peter believed him. There was a furious, childishly possessive fury in his gaze and Peter understood that he would tear the world apart if Peter left. He had the money, the strength and the capacity for darkness and disregard which could only be inherited that would let him do it too, until the world was in ashes or someone cut off his head to stop it. It was an unsettling thing to have someone like Roman love you, to have that level of possessive devotion fixed on you. As Peter ran his fingers through Roman’s hair, he found he didn’t really mind.

Bowing, Peter tilted Romans face up towards him, and pressed a kiss to those red, plush lips.

Roman let out an animal noise, wounded and desperate, as he surged into the kiss. His grip shifted from Peter’s shirt to his sides and held him tight enough Peter knew he would have splotches of colour across his skin like individual brands until they faded or Roman covered over them with new ones.

Whatever they were to each other, whatever they’d become, they couldn’t help but leave brands on each other. Their natures were edged with violence, but together that was tempered. They were each a rock which could withstand each other’s extremes -the only ones that were capable of it.

The kiss deepened, and he felt the wolf under his skin hunger for more. But the wolf trusted him to sate their needs. His hand in Roman’s hair fisted and he felt the taller boy press into the punishing grip as his tense muscles seemed to slacken as he relaxed into Peter’s hold.

Pulling away from the kiss, Peter laughed when Roman let out a hungry growl and tried to close in for another kiss. Thrill and exhilaration raced through his veins as he was reminded again that he wasn’t the only monster in this.

Whether it was the day and night immersed in blood or the strain he’d been under, Roman looked more like his upir nature than Peter had ever seen him, even blissed out on Peter's blood and an orgasm. his eyes were wide and glassy, but focused and his mouth was red and swollen from their kisses.

“Eat something,” Peter told him firmly, “then come to bed,”

Roman’s eyes flicked down to Peter’s throat at his words and his tongue slipped out to play with his lower lip. He nodded mutely and stood up, moving into the kitchen without a word.

Peter lifted a sleeping Nadia from her carrier and made his way up the stairs, trying not to listen to any noise from Roman in the kitchen. Though he could picture him taking deep, hungry swallows of the weird drink he kept in there.

Laying the sleeping baby into her crib, Peter looked down at her, taking in her soft blond curls and rosy cheeks. She was the last piece of Letha left in this world and he would tear the world apart, would go to battle again and lose himself in bloodshed to protect her. In her sleep she reached out, chubby fingers grasping towards the soft bear discarded in the corner. He smiled when he put it in her hands and she grabbed it towards herself, the frown which had been forming on her brow clearing away.

The sound of shifting fabric brought his attention to the door of Roman’s room. He looked up to see Roman watching him, head tilted and a soft expression on his face as he leant against the doorjamb. They just looked at each other for a moment, taking in the quiet of the house and the stillness of the night. For the time, they didn’t have to be anywhere, didn’t have to save anyone. The violence and horror of the last couple of months were, for the moment, gone.  

Roman moved across the room in a few long strides and grabbed Peter by the arms, shoving him back towards his bed and shoved him down on top of the sheets when they got close enough. Peter let himself be manhandled. The wildness of downstairs was gone, but the intent and fixed look to Roman had remained and Peter wanted to watch him come apart.

Peter pulled off his shirt, arching his back and making a show of it when Roman’s gaze fixed on the revelled skin and his tongue slipped out to wet his lips. When Peter reached for the waistband of his borrowed sweatpants, Roman was jolted into action.

Slapping Peter’s hands away, Roman knelt on the bed, pushing Peter’s legs apart to settle a knee between them. He hooked his fingers into the waistband and pulled them off unceremoniously, leaving Peter suddenly bare under his heated gaze.

Roman hummed to himself and rose from the bed to kick off his shoes and strip himself efficiently. Seconds later, he returned to his position between Peter’s legs and swooped down to claim his mouth in a kiss, groaning at the taste of him.

Peter felt light-headed when Roman finally released his mouth, moving kisses across his face and down his throat as his hands explored Peter’s body. Sometimes gripping tight and sometimes caressing him softly with his fingertips as though awed that he was allowed to touch. Peter couldn’t do anything but clutch at his shoulders and hair as he lay back under the assault, arching his back and pressing into the kisses rained down on him. When Roman sucked his nipple into his mouth before biting down as his hand scratched through Peter’s chest hair, the gypsy cursed up at the ceiling and dug his nails deep into the skin at the back of Roman’s neck in retaliation. Roman made a sound like he was dying and shuddered against Peter, his mouth going wet and slack against Peter’s chest and his hands scrabbling for grip for a second before he regained his control and doubled his assault on Peter. Working his way down Peter’s stomach before nuzzling into his groin, huffing hot breath against the skin of his inner thigh and seeming to breath him in as his hands gripped the meat of his thigh and the jut of his hip.

Peter lifted himself up onto his elbows to stare down the length of his body and Roman trailed kisses and licks along the line where thigh met groin and then along the line of Peter’s dick. it lay swollen and red against the flushed skin of Roman’s cheek and his soft, red lips looked obscene trailing wet, messy kisses along his shaft.

Peter fell back against the sheets and groaned. He couldn’t keep his eyes away from what he’d spent the last two years trying not to imagine, and his eyes were drawn back down to the blissed out look on Roman’s face.

“God,” he breathed, “your fucking mouth.”

“Yeah?” Roman murmured as he pressed a kiss to the crown of his dick and flicked a look up at Peter from under his lashes. “You like it? You want to fuck it?” His voice was falsely sweet and Peter saw his swollen lips curl up right before he wrapped them around the head of Peter’s dick and sucked.  

“Fucking Christ, Roman!” Peter’s head fell back and a shiver ran through his body as his dick was enclosed in the hot, wet interior of Roman’s mouth.

Roman groaned and sunk deeper onto his dick and when Peter pried his eyes open to look down at him, his eyes were shut and his mouth was stretched wide around the flesh in his mouth. He looked euphoric, like he never wanted to be anywhere else but between Peter’s legs, mouth stuffed with cock.

As Roman lowered his mouth further and Peter felt the head of his dick slip into his throat, Peter felt an irrational surge of hatred for anyone Roman had done this to before.

That was his last coherent thought before he lost himself in the hot, wet suction. Roman groan and gasped around Peter’s dick, sometimes sinking down until his lips were pressed into Peter’s public hair and staying there until he had to pull off, gasping and spluttering, other times working Peter with fast, wet sucks until Peter thought the slurping wet noises and the sound of skin on skin was going to melt his brain.

Peter was gasping into the room and forcing his eyes open so he could watch, one hand cradling the back of Roman’s skull and the other clenching the sheets under him as though he’d be able to hold himself together if he clutched them tight enough. Roman looked lost in the action, a flush high on his cheeks and sweat dampening his blond hair as it hung in his face a section tucked behind his ear in a way which made Peter’s hands shake with the desire to grip his hair tight and mess him up. His hips were working in unconscious thrusts against the mattress and Peter wondered if Roman could come from this, his mouth stuffed full and his hips working against the bed, he wondered what it’d feel like to have him groan his way through an orgasm around his dick and whether he’d keep sucking after, dopey and loose from release, sloppy as he kept on sucking.

In the seconds before his orgasm hit, Peter felt feverish and desperate as he chased release. He tightened his grip on Roman’s hair and gasped out a warning. He had just enough time to realise Roman had no intention of pulling off, and to curse before he was cumming so hard he felt the earth spin and flicker out briefly, leaving his limbs leaden and tingling as he tried to suck oxygen into his seizing lungs.

Roman’s face was pressed into his hip and he had one arm under his body. Peter could tell by the way it was moving he was jerking off as he panted and whined into Peter’s skin.  Tugging on his blond hair, Peter pulled Roman up so he was kneeling over him.

His movements were jerky and desperate, his eyes fluttering and his cheeks and chest red and blotchy with a flush as he worked himself with a punishing grip.

Untangling his fingers from Roman’s hair, Peter cradled his cheek, smiling when Roman leant into the contact before turning to nuzzle his palm and press wet kisses against his skin, moving until he could suck two fingers into his mouth. he bit down on them with blunt teeth and sucked harshly, drool slipping down his chin as the tension in his body ratcheted up.

“Come on me." Peter demanded, the thought sending sparks of arousal through his spent body.

Roman groaned and slumped forward, bracing himself over Peter with a hand beside his head. Through his hair, Peter could see how his face seized in a rigor of pleasure, his chin shiny with saliva as his body twitched violently before going completely still aside from a fine tremor through his shaking limbs as his come splashed across Peter’s chest and stomach.

After a moment Roman let out a grunt and pulled his mouth off Peter's fingers and crumpled forward in a controlled fall, pressing his face into Peter’s throat and sinking down on top of him as he panted and tried to catch his breath.

When the last aftershocks had run their course, Peter gently eased a dozing Roman off him, wiping them both clean with his discarded shirt and pulled the blanket out from beneath them and rolled Roman onto his side and slipped in behind him.

He curled around Roman’s larger frame and breathed a sigh into the back of his neck. In his sleep, Roman nuzzled his head into the pillow and grabbed Peter's arm tighter around him.

It wasn’t quite like the dreams which had taunted him from across the country and across town, the ones that were warmth and peace, a feeling of being settled and content beyond the comprehension of a gypsy, but I was close.

Closing his eyes, he pressed a kiss against the damp skin and short hair on Roman’s neck, tasted sweat and blood and ozone, and fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and season three never happened and they all lived happily ever after :)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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